AccuWeather's Leslie Hudson reports live from Little Rock, detailing how the city is preparing for dangerous storms targeting the central U.S.
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00:00For the latest, we're joined now by Leslie Hudson in Little Rock, Arkansas.
00:04Leslie, we want to start with how officials are preparing for the severe weather and especially
00:08the flooding threat.
00:10Yeah, they have really done a great job here, Anna, in this region of Little Rock where
00:16we are.
00:17You see over my shoulder, of course, is the Arkansas River.
00:20And although this particular area where we're at, the riverfront, is not likely to flood.
00:24There are multiple spots in the Little Rock area that they are concerned with flooding.
00:28Now, they had a major flood here in 2019, and they had 3,000 buildings that were either
00:34damaged or completely destroyed from that flood when the Mississippi backed up and created
00:39this inundation that they could not manage.
00:42So now that there is the threat, as you mentioned, of nearly a foot of rain possible in the coming
00:46days, they have really taken those precautions in place here to try and get folks ready for
00:52what could happen starting today and lasting through Saturday and Sunday.
00:57Now, the other important thing to know is that there's been some issues that they have
01:01taken with in terms of getting the city ready.
01:04So they let the students out here in the Little Rock area and the districts that surround
01:08Little Rock at noon today.
01:10So the school buses are off the road, so workers are home, the kids are home.
01:14And again, to mitigate some issues should that severe weather turn extremely dangerous
01:20for those folks.
01:21They didn't want anyone on the road.
01:22They've also ramped up their flooding effort, relief efforts.
01:26If there is going to be flash flooding in this area, they also have put more personnel
01:30in place to help with high water rescues later tonight, tomorrow, in the coming days.
01:35We spoke to the city and some of the preparations that they were taking, and they are taking
01:40this one seriously.
01:44We have our emergency management division, the police department, the fire department,
01:48all in our emergency operations center, ready to activate when needed.
01:52But right now, we're hoping for the best, praying, and we just want everyone to make
01:56sure that they're weather aware, stay weather aware, know where they're going to go in the
02:00event of a tornado.
02:02Also remind them of flood safety tips.
02:08Now it's also important to remember that when they had this flood in 2019, they did do some
02:12sandbagging efforts in some of the low-lying areas here in Arkansas.
02:16You may have seen some of the video that we shot earlier today.
02:19There are definitely some big dips in some of the roads here where it is very likely
02:23to flood, so they also are prepping that.
02:26The city officials have some sandbags that are ready.
02:29If you're concerned and you're in this immediate area of Little Rock, you can call your city
02:32officials and they'll get you some of those sandbags.
02:35But again, they are ready for this.
02:37They also had an EF3 tornado that moved through here just a few years ago, and they're still
02:42rebuilding from that.
02:43So they're taking all the components of this severe weather seriously, as well as millions
02:48of people here across the Mississippi Valley.
02:50Reporting live from Little Rock, I'm Leslie Hudson.
02:52Back to you.
02:53Thanks, Leslie.
02:54Good to hear that they're taking those steps.