WASHINGTON COUNTY, Ark. (KNWA/KFTA) — Northwest Arkansas Task Force 1 Water Strike Team was deployed to help with flooding recovery in Central Arkansas last weekend.

Seven members from the Springdale, Fayetteville and Rogers fire departments performed rescue and recovery missions in feet of standing water south of Little Rock, including one around 1 a.m. Saturday.

“We got sent back out again to go look for a sunken vehicle with a potential missing person,” said Springdale firefighter Daniel Hopping, who was part of last weekend’s Task Force. “We were out for a few hours doing that operation until it was terminated until a later time.”

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Willie Watts, Washington County’s Urban Search and Rescue’s team leader, said the Task Force has been operational for about 15 years. He said different emergency response agencies across Arkansas make up the Task Force, with two headquarters: one in Fayetteville and another in Little Rock.

There’s a symbiotic relationship where agencies from Northwest Arkansas and Central Arkansas will respond to disasters around the Natural State. For disaster response beyond the Natural State’s borders, 40-50 people from Arkansas will respond on behalf of the Task Force, Watts said.

Watts said there are 20-25 departments in Northwest Arkansas that can be called on to serve on the Task Force to prevent one agency from getting overworked in disaster response.

“We do flood swift-water response. We do high- and low-angle. We have a helicopter rescue component,” Watts said. “They’ve done multiple extractions from elevated environments in the national forests and things of that nature. We have a structural collapse component. There’s a hazardous materials component.

“All of these things are literally just derivatives of things we anticipate being taxed in the event there’s a major incident in Arkansas,” Watts said.

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Hopping was joined this weekend by fellow Springdale firefighter Trevor Hutchens, who was participating in his first Task Force mission outside of Northwest Arkansas.

“When you see washing machines and cars and dishwashers floating around in people’s front yards or down the side of the street, it’s eye-opening,” Hutchens said.

Both Hutchens and Hopping agree that their training to become a Task Force member, as well as their experience in Central Arkansas last weekend, can come in handy in the event there’s a flooding event in Northwest Arkansas or the River Valley.

If a major flooding event were to happen in this corner of the state, the Arkansas Task Force 1 Water Strike Team would be ready to respond.

“That’s what we all signed up for in the fire service or EMS service is to help people,” Hutchens said. “That’s our ultimate goal. That’s what makes us tick, so where you’re able to do it at a very high level like that, it’s a real big sense of pride.”

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