Dozens Still Missing After Deadly Arkansas Floods

(June 12) -- A frantic search is underway in Arkansas this morning for nearly two dozen people feared dead after torrential rains turned their idyllic campsites on the Caddo and Little Missouri rivers into a flood zone. One survivor said raging waters carried away babies in a flash.

At least 18 people were killed in the floods, including six children, and two dozen people have been hospitalized. Capt. Mike Fletcher of the Arkansas State Police said there are about 24 people unaccounted for as of Saturday morning.

Figuring out who was actually at one of the campsites, the Albert Pike Recreation Area in Arkansas' Ouachita National Forest, has been complicated by the fact that a registry that campers sign when they enter the forest was also washed away in the floods.

Children's clothing was left tangled in treetops where the waters rose Friday by eight feet an hour. A normally waist-high river swelled to more than 20 feet deep overnight, its banks swamping tents as campers slept inside them. Sturdy RVs and mobile homes were swept away and then discarded by Mother Nature in ruins.

"I have a 16-year-old who was floating down the river saying, 'Momma and Daddy, help me!'" survivor Angela Chriss told NBC News. "We couldn't do nothing, we had to watch him float down, but thank God he lodged to a tree."

"That's nothing compared to those little babies who were screaming and hollering in the river: 'Help me, help me!'" Chriss cried. "But we just couldn't reach them."

Television footage of the wreckage left behind suggested the torrent was so strong, it peeled the bark off trees and asphalt off roads. Dead cattle could be seen floating down river.

Another unnamed survivor described what it was like to hear the floodwaters coming closer. "All you could hear was the rising water," she told the local KATV news station. "The water was really close, sounded like high, high winds and you could hear things cracking and snapping and stuff would rush by you and you didn't know what it was."

"It's a different kind of devastation than I've ever seen. It frankly boggles the mind how swift the water was," Arkansas Gov. Mike Beebe told reporters on Friday. His comments and details of the damage were reported by several news outlets.

Search and rescue workers are gingerly climbing over downed trees today in search of survivors, and power crews are fanning out to fix down electricity lines. National Guard helicopters hover overhead as searchers navigate steep gullies, some of them by kayak.

Portable cell phone towers are being hauled in and constructed across the area, in the hope that anyone stranded with a cell phone will be able to call for help, Beebe said. Rescuers are trying to match vehicle license plates to any missing campers.

About 40 people gathered for a candlelight vigil Friday night in front of a church in the nearby town of Langley. Hymns and prayers were offered for victims and rescue workers working all night to help them. The pastor, Scott Kitchens, told KATV he spent the day counseling victims, including a woman whose 6-year-old child was swept away by the floods.