WESTSIDE — With six people and two dogs in an inflatable Zodiac swift-water rescue boat, team leader Kevin Higgins could not know that disaster lurked seconds away.
As darkness fell April 25, the Illinois River south of Siloam Springs kept rising. People trapped in their homes issued frantic 911 calls for help.
Deputies from the Benton County Sheriff’s Office are the first to arrive on the scene. After consulting with Higgins, deputy Charles Strickland walks a family of five through waist-deep moving water to safety.
Shortly after midnight, Higgins - a battalion chief with the Highfill Volunteer Fire Department - pushes the department’s inflatable Zodiac swift-water rescue boat into the dark torrent to rescue the 11 people still trapped in their homes, now nearly a quarter mile from shore, on Old Goforth and Riverdale Roads.
With three residents and two other rescuers on board, Higgins steers the boat away from a flooded house. He estimates the current was class III - difficult on the International Scale of River Rapids. Along the front of the house is a safe zone, where the current is blocked. But when Higgins leaves the safe zone and hits the rapids, the boat’s motor did not have enough power.
“There was nothing we could do. With the motor wide open, we were losing ground,” Higgins said.
The dark churning water sweeps the boat downstream, where it slams into the trees. The Zodiac - designed to be almost impossible to submerge - momentarily goes under water, Higgins said.
Two rescuers, Blake Webb and Delton Bush, are thrown out of the boat into the trees. The impact also knocks the motor loose and the nowcrippled Zodiac is at the mercy of the river.
Higgins and the three residents wash downstream toward the Arkansas Highway 59 bridge, where only a few inches separates the water from the bottom of the bridge. If the boat reachedthe bridge the current would surely pull them under.
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With rain falling since Thursday, the Highfill team has been busy.
Highfill Fire Chief Jeremy Jackson estimated the 11-member team performed more than 30 water rescues between Sunday night and the early hours of Tuesday morning. There were so many rescues they all ran together, Higgins said. Nobody slept for more than a few hours between Sunday evening and Tuesday night, Jackson added.
While many area fire departments in western Benton County have firefighters trained for water rescue, Highfill has the only boat and water rescue team west of Interstate 540. The Rogers Fire Department is primarily responsible for the east side of the county, Jackson said.
Higgins, who has years of training in swift-water rescue, is an instructor for the Arkansas Fire Academy and has worked as an instructor for Ozark Rescue Supply and with the Benton County Search and Rescue Team, which was one of the most elite river rescue teams in the state during the early 1990s, he said.
Five team members - Higgins, Blake Webb, Delton Bush, and cousins Gene Holland and Rob Holland - arrived with the rescue boat south of Siloam Springs just after midnight. The water rose so quickly that the road on which they arrived was waist deep two hours later, Higgins said.
The water rescues
The team starts the rescue at the house farthest upstream from the Arkansas Highway 59 Bridge, planning to work downstream.
The first house holds five occupants. When Higgins and Benton County Sheriff’s Office Deputy Charles Strickland reach the house, Strickland walks the family to shore through the waistdeep moving water.
The team turns to the remaining four houses, by now nearly submerged and more than a quarter mile from shore. The rescuers can only see about 30 yards ahead of them in the darkness. As they motor along, they watch the water in an effort to determine what’s ahead and zig-zag around obstacles.
At the next house the water is only four to six inches below the porch. The three occupants want to stay, but Higgins warns them their home could be swept away. They agree to leave but want to take their dogs with them. They load the dogs, then climb in, donning life jackets as the firefighters give them a quick orientation - sit in the middle of the boat and stay low.
With the boat loaded above capacity, Higgins has to lighten the boat. Two rescuers - Rob and Gene Holland - climb out and stay behind.
The plan is to drop off the rescued people, then pick up the Hollands on the trip to the next house.
As the boat heads into the current without the Hollands, the plan falls apart with the river taking charge and driving the boat into the trees and throwing Bush and Webb overboard.
“It was the scariest moment of my career, and I’ve been doing this since 1982,” Higgins said.
"I was worried about the other people who needed to be rescued," Bush said."I was also worried about our people in the boat, but I knew we had an expert in the boat, and he handled it well."
Bush and Webb, stranded in two close-by trees, discussed what to do in the event the rising water pushed over the trees.
"We talked together and planned what we were going to do if the trees went down," Webb said.
As the boat clears the trees, Higgins pulls paddles from storage as he instructs one of the rescued men how to row. Taking an angle with the current, they row to shore across water the boat’s motor had not been powerful enough to handle and reach the shore between two old barns, where Siloam Springs firefighter David Page meets them.
“A higher power above guided our boat ... I didn’t do this myself. There is no human that could do this,” Higgins said.
As Page pulls the boat to shore, Higgins issues a mayday over his radio because of his team members left clinging to the trees and his now disabled rescue craft.
With no other rescue boats available, Higgins does the only thing he can do: Repair the motor. He quickly puts the motor back into place and hooks up the fuel lines. Miraculously, it starts on the third pull.
But Higgins is crewless: Two are stranded at the house, two are out there in the trees - or worse yet, washed downriver.
He asks if any of the firefighters on shore have water-rescue experience. Firefighter Steve Camporna steps forward, as does deputy Strickland. Camporna worked with Higgins on the Benton County Search and Rescue Team and Strickland had experience from the Marine Corps.
Now Higgins faces returning to the flooded river he’s just escaped.
“Mom’s prayers for me over the years and the faith of those guys waiting for me are the only thing that kept me going,” he said.
The makeshift crew heads into the raging river, navigating through obstacles - trees, cars, parts of destroyed boats and floating hay bales.
Higgins faces what he calls the most difficult decision of his life: Rescue his fire-fighting brothers, or rescue the flood victims.
He leaves his comrades stranded in the trees and at the house so he can rescue another family.
Higgins said he reasoned the firefighters on the team were trained to survive,were equipped with safety gear and had found a fairly safe place. The residents were helpless.
“You have no idea the anguish in my heart that I had to forsake my crew,” Higgins said.
Arriving at the next home, the crew finds the water had risen until the residents were left standing on top of stepladders on the porch - with just their heads above water.
The people tell the team there’s another man in the garage. They find him sitting on the cab of a truck and water so deep that those in the boat had to lay down flat to get into the garage. The man - and the 200-pound dog with him - scramble into the boat.
Higgins and his new crew work around obstacles to reach shore.
As they arrive, Bush and Webb - still stuck in the trees - get their radios working, telling everyone listening they are safe for the time being. Rob and Gene Holland, still stranded at the house, also radio that they are safe.
Once again, Higgins chooses to leave them behind so he can rescue other flood victims.
A family with three children wait at the fourth house. The father had put a ladder up to the roof and helped his wife and their three elementary-schoolaged children onto the roof. The floodwater is just 18 inches below the ceiling inside the house.
The look on the father’s face made all the hours of training and sacrifice he made over the years worth it, Higgins said.
The parents hand the children to the rescuers and then climb in.
“I looked down and here is a family with their precious cargo. Little do they know I have two brothers in peril,” he said.
During the journey to shore, the family asks how they could ever repay the rescue team for saving their lives. Higgins tells the little boys in the boat the only thing he asks of them is for one of them to become a firefighter when he grows up, so he has a replacement.
As they reach shore and the family unloads, the only thing going through Higgins’ mind is: “I’ve got to get my brothers.”
The makeshift team, now battle hardened, returns to the river.
Higgins said he had no idea how he was going to motor up to the trees to retrieve the two firefighters.
But the rescue boat reaches the trees with no problem and Webb and Bush clambered into the boat.
“There were tears then,” Higgins said.
He had watched his comrades disappear as he left them behind.
They had watched him float away with no motor.
They return to the second house for Rob and Gene Holland, then head back to the safety of the shore.
“My night went from absolute terror to redemption,” Higgins said.
There was still one family stranded in the home farthest downriver. Higgins tells his original team to stay on the shore and rest. His new crew can handle the job.
But Delton Bush, who has been stranded in the tree, insists on returning to duty.
“This firefighter had been hanging in the water and he’s going to face it again,” Higgins said.
At the final house, the team finds a couple who had been married for 35 years. They cross back tosafety in the rescue boat holding hands. Another firefighter pulls the boat out of the water when it arrives in the calm waters between the two old barns.
As he walks down the street with the boat and crew, a crowd of firefighters from area departments who had rushed to the scene, greets them. Higgins estimates 50 to 75 firefighters were there.
“They couldn’t do anything to help us (out on the river) but they were there to support us,” he said.
The harrowing experience taught Higgins to be thankful for life and drew him even closer to his fire department family.
He said his team members are not heroes. They didn’t do anything for the applause, but to help other people and serve each other.
With deep emotion in his voice, he said: “I’ve got the best job in the world.”
News, Pages 1 on 05/04/2011