Fort Smith |  |
The following Incident Reports were extracted from the NPS Morning Reports/Coalition Reports from 1989-2025. They are not a complete record of all incidents which occurred in this park during this timeframe. INCIDENTS | |
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June 17, 1987 Location: "First Fort Smith" Trail Seven cars of a train derailed while passing through the park (the Union Pacific has a right-of-way). The cars came off the track, but did not flip over; the engine was not involved. The park trail was closed for only 45 minutes, and it has not yet been determined whether or not any other resource damage was sustained. A Union Pacific team arrived on scene yesterday. By late in the afternoon, all seven cars had been removed and track repair was underway. The cause is still unknown, but the age of the tracks may be a factor.
The park received 1.65 inches of rain on May 1st, 3.84 inches on the 2nd and 2.84 inches on the 3rd. The basement of the visitor center was flooded with just under four inches of water on Tuesday. Approximately ten acres of the park were under water, including portions of the Denver Service Center project near the river. (Tom Crowson, CTRM, FOSM, via CompuServe message from RAD/SWRO, 6 p.m. EDT, 5/4/90).
Long-time park employee P.D.D. was killed in a single car accident on Friday night, November 11th. He had worked at Fort Smith for more than 21 years in various maintenance positions. Services will be scheduled for later this week. P.D.D.'s presence will be greatly missed by family, friends and co-workers. Condolences may be sent to his wife, W., and their three sons in care of Fort Smith National Historic Site, P.O. Box 1406, Fort Smith, AR 72902. [FOSM, 11/14]
A tornado ripped through Fort Smith and adjacent areas around 11 p.m. on the evening of April 21st. Four people were killed, and over 600 homes, 30 apartment complexes, and 200 business buildings were demolished. The governor has declared the surrounding seven counties as disaster areas. The park sustained major damage to the historic courthouse/jail and to commissary buildings. All of the trees on Belle Point are reportedly "gone," and all of the stately trees on the grounds are down. Power and phones are out. All park employees have been accounted for. Several nearby parks - Buffalo River, Pea Ridge, Hot Springs, and Jefferson National Expansion - have sent maintenance and protection employees and considerable amounts of equipment to help in site protection, damage assessment and cleanup. A preservation crew is in the park, and DSC has sent a structural engineer and an historical architect to help out. [Flo Six, PIO, MWFDO]
Crews are making significant progress in post-tornado recovery efforts. Park staff and personnel from Chickasaw, Buffalo River, Pea Ridge and Hot Springs have utilized heavy equipment loaned by those parks to stabilize buildings and clear most of the downed tree debris on the main grounds. They will now move on to Belle Point. The park expects to release protection rangers from other parks this weekend. Cost estimates of damages are being formulated. The park expects to reopen on Monday with limited public services. [Flo Six, MWFDO]
Cleanup efforts are still underway two weeks after the park and downtown Fort Smith were heavily damaged by a tornado. The damages inflicted on the commissary building and the courthouse/jail building have been stabilized through the work of engineers and architects from Denver Service Center and the SWSSO cultural preservation crew. Administrative, law enforcement, maintenance and safety personnel from Chickasaw, Buffalo, Hot Springs, Jefferson National Expansion, and Pea Ridge teamed together to protect park resources, remove over 250 dangerous trees, restrain curious visitors, and cleanup the area. The park staff extends its sincere thanks and appreciation for all their help. Present plans call for patching the roofs of the two damaged buildings this fiscal year, and replacing the roof on the courthouse/jail next fiscal year. The park reopened to the public on May 4th. [Interpretation, FOSM]
Maintenance worker Kenneth Smith, 67, collapsed while working on a concrete footing on the afternoon of March 14th. Responding rangers and maintenance workers found him in respiratory distress. His breathing became labored, then stopped. Rescue breathing was begun and worked briefly, but cardiac arrest ensued. Advanced life support personnel from the Fort Smith Fire Department arrived on scene within minutes, but efforts to revive him proved unavailing. Ken's son, Gary, is the facility manager at Fort Smith, and was at the scene; his brother, Joe, is a maintenance worker at Buffalo River. A CISD peer counseling team was requested and has been dispatched to the park. [Robert Still, PR, Pea Ridge NMP, 3/15]
On Wednesday evening, the Fort Smith area was struck by a number of severe thunderstorms that dropped about seven inches of rain and hail the size of golf balls and larger. The hail and flooding from the heavy rain caused significant damage to the park: About a foot of water filled the plaza in front of the park's visitor center after the drainage grates filled up with debris. The water entered the building through the front doors and made it up to the information desk. Staff moved all bookstore items and furniture to higher ground and got the standing water out of the building by 3 a.m. The single pane stairway windows were knocked out; although water entered at that point, it caused no significant damage to the interior. Two or three exterior panes of the double pane windows in the administrative offices were broken, but the main water damage to the interior came through around the cupolas and end caps. Roof and flashing damage is undetermined at this time. The visitor center was closed yesterday so that carpets could be cleaned and dried. The maintenance building lost all of its skylights, and park staff had to work into the early hours of the morning to cover them with tarps. A good deal of water entered the building and is being removed. Fortunately, neither the park collection nor its server were damaged. The commissary lost at least six windows and numerous slate shingles. Frisco Station lost seven windows and the upstairs area sustained significant damage from water, wind and broken glass. The alarm system was knocked out. Roof and other damage is as yet undetermined. Several employees lost windows in their homes and a couple of employees reported hail and debris damage to their vehicles. No injuries have been reported, though. Pea Ridge has sent three employees to the park to help cover the broken windows. The visitor center should reopen tomorrow if carpet cleaning is completed. [Bill Black, Superintendent]
Amy Garrett, a park ranger at Fort Smith, was tragically killed earlier this week in a motor vehicle accident during a heavy rainstorm east of Fort Smith, Arkansas. In addition to being an outstanding interpreter and education specialist, Amy enthusiastically supported the interpretive development program as a peer-review certifier. She received the Freeman Tilden national award in 2003 for her work in bringing distance learning to the forefront of education. Garrett, a ten-year veteran with the NPS, previously worked at Central High School NHS, Homestead NM, Death Valley NP, and Yellowstone NP. Her positive, cheerful attitude and a great enthusiasm for interpretation made her a shining star in the NPS. There will be a private service for the family. A memorial website has been established to share stories and photographs: HYPERLINK "http://www.sympathytree.com/amygarrett1961/". A memorial fund has been set up. Donations can be sent to the Amy Garrett Memorial Fund, Regions Bank, 5400 Rogers Avenue, Fort Smith, AR 72903. [Nancy Stimson, Chief of Interpretation]
A fire broke out inside a lean-to shed attached to Frisco Station around 4 p.m. on January 8th. The shed, a non-historic structure that was added to the historic Frisco Station during the 1960's, is currently being used for storage, but the long-term goal is to remove it since it's not associated with the fort's historic period. The damage to the shed was fairly limited. Electrical work was being conducted earlier in the day inside the shed, but responding firefighters said that the fire originated in a different location from where the wiring work was being done. The fire apparently began at the bottom of the shed door, leading fire department personnel to believe it might have been intentionally set. [Jackie Henman, Regional Law Enforcement Specialist, MWRO]
A local homeowner brought a cannon ball that he'd dug up in his garden into the park's visitor center on the morning of April 21st. Ranger Jeremy Lynch, the park's historic weapons specialist, recognized it as a six pound cased shot (fragmentation ball) with what appeared to be a rusted but still intact fuse. Fort Smith police were called and Lynch removed the ball from the visitor center, placed it in a red wood box, and moved it out onto park grounds away from everything. After police arrived, park staff were evacuated and a perimeter was established to keep visitors and others away. There were no visitors in the buildings or on the nearby grounds at the time. The city fire department's bomb squad arrived shortly thereafter and confirmed that the cannon ball might be live. They removed it and will arrange to have it rendered safe. The shell was found on the east side of the city on a steep bluff that is now a residential area. The site is well outside the Civil War fortifications that surrounded the town in the 1860's, but there were a number of skirmishes near this area and the bluff would have made a good target for practice. The homeowner told us that he had taken his five kids to school that morning with it rolling around in his van. [Bill Black, Superintendent]
As was reported in Wednesday's edition, a local homeowner brought what appeared to be a Civil War cannonball that he'd dug up in his garden into the park's visitor center on the morning of April 21st. Rangers got it out of the building and it was subsequently removed from the park by members of a local bomb squad. After some effort, they were finally able to take a good X-ray of the cannonball and determined that it was solid, not hollow. When they cleaned up the area around what had appeared to be a fuse, they found that it was in all probability a snapped-off stem of some type. Further investigation revealed that it might be the top of an iron ornamental fence - or it might have been a cannonball used as a post top, a fashion found elsewhere in the area. It will likely be donated to the bomb squad for training purposes. "Overall, it was a picture perfect exercise," said superintendent Bill Black."The city police did exactly what they needed to do, the bomb squad responded and handled the situation professionally and it was all taken care of in one hour." [Jackie Henman, MWRO]
On December 13, 2012, an NPS special agent was contacted by the park and asked to assist with an Archeological Resource Protection Act violation that had occurred there. Park maintenance workers had contacted two men - J.W. and C.K., both of Fort Smith - who were reportedly using metal detectors and digging for artifacts on the park's parade ground. Ranger Matt Fry from Pea Ridge NM and officers from the Fort Smith PD responded, identified the two men, and began assessing damage. Fry and the special agent identified the damage, processed the crime scene, and conducted further investigation into the report. In January, 2013, C.K. and J.W. were interviewed pursuant to the investigation, confessed to the acts, and were identified as convicted felons. The cost of restoration and repair and the archeological value were determined to total $3,678. Both J.W. and C.K. pleaded guilty and in December 2014 were ordered to pay $1,228 in restitution, fines, and court costs. NPS Archeologist Melissa Baier assisted with the investigation and US Attorney David Ferguson prosecuted the case for the Western District of Arkansas at Fort Smith. [Investigative Services Branch]
A man has been sentenced to serve 30 years in prison, bringing to a close an interagency investigation and bringing justice to the victim of a violent attack. E.Z.R., 27, pleaded guilty to attempted first-degree murder and kidnapping at a recent court hearing. The charges stemmed from an August 2017 incident in the park. On August 30, 2017, E.Z.R. attacked a woman as she jogged along a park path. After taking the woman's cellphone and throwing it, E.Z.R. stabbed her in the neck and head several times, went to the river and washed his shirt, then ran away. The woman was able to alert others in the park, who summoned help. E.Z.R. was located several blocks from the park later that day and taken into custody. The case was a cooperative effort between a ranger from nearby Pea Ridge National Military Park and the City of Fort Smith Police Department. In addition to the prison term, the judge issued E.Z.R. a no-contact order with the victim. Source: Investigative Services Branch.
On June 1st, the Arkansas River, which was at a high flood stage, flowed through the park at an estimated 570,000 cubic feet per second, cresting at 40.79 feet at a nearby gauge. It caused considerable damage within the park, particularly at its Trail of Tears overlook, which commemorates one of the last stops in the Chickasaw, Choctaw, Cherokee, Muscogee Creek and Seminole tribes' "Trail of Tears" forced removals to what is now Oklahoma. The river's waters dislodged five plaques at the site and reduced most of the overlook to a pile of rubble and fallen trees. The plaques told the stories of each of the five tribes and their journeys from their original homelands in the South after the Indian Removal Act of 1830. The overlook also gave visitors a panoramic view of the Arkansas River, which was used as a waterway in the removal. "It wasn't just an overlook," said Lisa Conrad Frost, the park's superintendent. "It was a whole story, a cultural landscape, that told a bigger story." The park will be consulting with the five tribes in determining how to rebuild the site, and, of course, will be seeking money to underwrite the costs. Source: Max Bryan, Times Record. | |