37 years later: Remembering the Christmas Flood of 1987

County hit with second disaster in as many weeks following tornado

By Ralph Hardin

news@theeveningtimes.com

On Dec. 14, 1987, a deadly tornado tore through West Memphis. In the aftermath, the community came together to deal with the disaster. Little did they know that yet another wave of nature’s wrath was on the horizon.

There was rain in the forecast, but no one anticipated just how much precipitation was in store for Crittenden County when it began to rain early Christmas Eve, just 10 days removed from the killer storm that killed six people, injured 200, left 1,500 people homeless, and caused $30 million is damages.

But as Christmas Eve gave way to Christmas Day, it kept raining… and kept raining.

While there was no official rain gauge in Crittenden County, by the time the heaviest rains moved out of the area, the Memphis rain gauge registered 12 inches of rain in less than 12 hours and there was more rain on the way.

Drainage systems, already overtaxed by heavy rains earlier in the week, were unable to contain the deluge. By 1 a.m. on Dec. 25, evacuations were taking place in parts of Marion near the high school and in the Westwood Acres subdivision in West Memphis. By 3 a.m., more than 1,000 homes were taking on water and city and county emer-

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gency responders were being called into action to address the worsening conditions.

The flooding spread across the county, from Turrell in the north to Earle in the west to the St. Francis Levee in the south and east where the swollen banks of the Mississippi threatened even more calamity.

As morning dawned, many who would otherwise have been opening Christmas presents and seeing what Santa Claus had brought the kids, thousands of emergency workers instead waded through chilly waters to help locate and rescue flooding victims from their homes, many of which were now inundated with up to four feet of water in some places. Thousands of vehicles were flooded right in their driveways and in business parking lots. Roadways became impassible. In places where cars and trucks were unable to travel due to high water, boats became the primary mode of search and rescue. In parts of Marion, school buses were commandeered for evacuations to local churches and other makeshift disaster relief centers. Many of the shelters which were already in place from the Dec. 14 tornado were simply expanded to include the hundreds of people now seeking refuge from the flooding.

There was one fatality reported during the flood. Jerry

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Glenn Frasure, 27, of West Memphis, apparently drowned when his car was swept into a drainage ditch by fast-moving water on Walker Street on the east end of the city early Christmas morning.

Although he had been reported missing when he missed a family Christmas get-together, hs body was not discovered until his car was spotted in 10-Mile Bayou on Dec. 29 after flood waters finally began to recede.

In the aftermath of the flooding, West Memphis became the first city in U.S. history to be declared a federal disaster area twice in a single month.

FEMA, Red Cross and other disaster response organizations worked diligently with local and state officials to get aid to affected residents. In the years that followed, massve flood prevention and drainage efforts were launched.

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