Truck fails to ford flooded road

Two feet of swiftly flowing water has the potential to sweep a pickup truck or SUV off a flooded road; four feet will do it for sure.

Four natural gas field workers learned this lesson the hard way late Thursday morning on Springfield Road near the Faulkner/Conway county line just east of the Cadron Creek bridge.

About 20 feet past the end of the bridge the driver of the truck, a late-model Chevrolet Silverado Heavy Duty pickup, would have been confronted with swiftly flowing water covering the road for as far as the eye could see. Rather than backtrack and take the long way around, up Highway 124 and down Highway 285, the driver decided to push onward through the water.

The truck made it about 200 yards down the road before being washed about 50 yards into a field and coming to rest with water up to the windows. The four occupants were rescued at about 1:45 p.m. by a Conway County swiftwater rescue team. They were reported to be uninjured.

The decision to ford the flooded road was a deeply inadvisable one, Faulkner County Judge Preston Scroggin said. Scroggin again urged all motorists confronted with a flooded road to not even ponder whether their vehicle can motor through it or not, but rather to turn around and find another way to get to where they're going.

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"Just don't drive down a flooded road. Period," Scroggin said.

Faulkner County Sheriff's Office, Wooster Fire Department, Conway Fire Department and Faulkner County Rescue Squad responded at the Faulkner County side of the flooded road. Several firemen waded hundreds of yards through hip-deep water to check that the occupants of the truck were safe, but word came back that the four were safely rescued by Conway County emergency workers before the rescue squad could get a boat in the water.

The truck was still in the flooded field Thursday night. Scroggin said he supposed recovery will have to wait until Cadron Creek recedes.

(Staff writer Joe Lamb can be reached by e-mail at joe.lamb@thecabin.net or by phone at 505-1238. Send us your news at www.thecabin.net/submit)