The following story was printed in the Wednesday, July 19, 2023 Camden News
A powerful storm Saturday evening caused significant damage to trees, powerlines and personal property in Ouachita County.
"All the reports that we got were first straight line wins except for one, but they weren't sure," Travis Shelton, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service office in Little Rock, said.
Because the track of the storms were so far from the observation point at Harrell Field, Shelton said that they did not have a reading on the wind speed of the storm.
"Everything else is going to have to be assessed from, really, estimates. We do storm surveys based on the types of trees and the type of damage. So, we might have to do a survey," he said.
"Looks like it went it went from Northwest to Southeast across Ouachita County, " he added. "What we're hearing is, for the most part, it does look like straight line wind damage, which is what it looks like on the radar."
Ouachita County Emergency Management Coordinator Adam LaDuke said that while damage might meet state standards for aid, it wouldn't reach levels requiring aid from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
"I talked to the ADEM (Arkansas Department of Emergency Management) coordinator yesterday for our area and she said it might could possibly push state level but she was pretty confident -- because it was only us and Ashley County that really had any damage, and Ashley apparently wasn't as bad as ours," he said. "It's got to hit $4.2 or 4.3 million before it's even considered to be a federal level across the state, and she said as far as she knew, it was only us and Ashley County that reported anything. And so I'm pretty pretty confident. It will not meet a FEMA level at all."
LaDuke urged motorist to watch out for Ouachita County Road crews as they perform extensive road cleanup for areas hit by the storm.
Meanwhile, Ouachita County residents will be able to bring storm debris to the landfill free of charge through Saturday, July 22, for free. The landfill will be open to take debris at 7:30 a.m.