It was supposed to be bad here Thursday - real bad. But the storm front that played out in the region did not match the pre-game hype by any measure. The eye of Hurricane Laura took an eastward path Thursday, sparing Texarkana and the immediate region from the worst of the tropical storm conditions.
Even so, heavy rain persisted for much of the day along with winds between 30 and 35 mph.
"Remnants of the eye wall," were pushing toward South Central Arkansas late Thursday morning, leaving Northeast Texas and much of Southwest Arkansas in the clear, the National Weather Service Shreveport Office reported.
Many parts of the region are on Flash Flooding alert until 7 a.m. today. Flooding could occur in poor drainage areas. Heavy rainfall could also cause flooding of creeks, streams and rivers.
"Don't underestimate the power of water. Don't risk driving through flood waters," said Charlie Woodrum, meteorologist will the National Weather Service in Shreveport.
Rainfall totals for Thursday range from 3 to 6 inches in parts of the regions with isolated highs approaching 8 inches.
Some trees were down in Miller County Thursday morning including one on U.S. Highway 71 near Doddridge but crews were dispatched quickly to remove the debris.
"It does not take much for trees to go down when the ground is this wet," said Miller County Office of Emergency Management Director Joe Bennett.
Low areas on both sides of the city did not experience any extraordinary flooding Thursday, police said. A lot of people chose to stay home and out of the mess. Others, like neighborhood kids, chose to enjoy the moment and wade into the middle of it. (Most local schools had been closed in advance of what was widely projected to be a major weather event.)
There were outages in Texarkana and the region on Thursday, but not so widespread that power providers were overwhelmed.
Southwest Arkansas REA reported 223 Miller County customers were still without power along with 85 Lafayette County customers and 118 Hempstead County customers Thursday afternoon. SWEPCO reported about 100 customers had power outages Thursday in Texarkana, and Bowie Cass Electric reported 51.
Regions to the south and east of here did not fare as well, according to media reports.