WYNNE — The City of Wynne once again dealt with some flooding issues over the weekend, after nearly four inches of rain fell on Saturday.
Several streets as well as the railroad overpass were temporarily closed due to the flooding.
Wynne Fire Chief Kory Ward said his department was not called out for any flood-related accidents on Saturday, but he said it has been a strange year.
“It’s been a weird year for the rain. We’ve had more flooding this year than what I’ve seen in the past,” he said. “I think it’s just been the amount of rainfall in the amount of time when it happens. I think we had almost three inches of rain the other night within an hour. There’s a lot of issues to that that’s outside the city. Where it starts, we’ve got drainage issues out in the county that go into our natural waterways. It’s a collective issue.
“We’ve talked to the Corps of Engineers. We tried to get a game plan together. It all comes down to the funding at the end of the day, rights-of-way and things of that nature,” Ward added. “It’s a lot of moving parts to it solving that problem without a whole lot of money that I don’t know that we have as a county or even as a city would have close to.”
Ward said when that much rain falls in such a short window, it just takes time for it to go away.
“Originally when the city was built the roadways were built as guttered streets. As other infrastructure has been put in, they put in the appropriate storm drains,” he said. “When you get a torrential amount of downfall rain in a very short period of time, it overloads the system. It’s receding. It just takes time to go away sometimes.”
