Steady, Soaking Rain Makes for Slippery Roads and Trails

Much of the area received some needed rainfall overnight and into the afternoon Friday; but now, crews are left to clean up the fallen debris.

“Oftentimes the volume of water will exceed the amount of space that’s inside the creek bed,” said David Wright, Bentonville Parks and Recreation director. “So a lot of times the water will come over onto the creek. We are cleaning up debris, and limbs and liter and those kinds of things that really come up onto the trails.”

Much of Northwest Arkansas was soaked but Wright said cleanup is underway. 

“Something like today [Friday], our crews have already been out and assessed all of our facilities and we will work a little bit this afternoon but mostly tomorrow morning to make sure that everything is usable,” Wright said.

With more rain in the forecast, slippery roads and trails could cause problems.

“A lot of people may not use the walking trails and things of that nature but just anytime you see a stream on the walking trails, even the biking trails, there could be some of the low water streams even through some of the areas,” said Sergeant Craig Stout of the Fayetteville Police Department. “I mean obviously some of those are going to be wet, whenever you are biking it’s very easy to lose control on a wet surface.”

The Fayetteville Police Department is gearing up to stay ahead of the weather.

“Primarily what we have been dealing with is accidents,” Stout said. “We haven’t seen any of the street related closings but that’s always a potential especially with the rain we have had today.”

Wright expects all of the trails to be cleared by Saturday morning.