Arkansas flood update….

We reported earlier on the adventures of North American Devon president Greg Hickl whose Arkansas farm was ravaged by the flooding Fourche river in those recent storms.  Greg and neighbors have been working day and night to recover hundreds of cows (including Greg’s herd of purebred Devon).

Now Greg emails that the loss at his farm is not as great as he feared, but still the flood  has inflicted great suffering on the area.

Friends- 

We have certainly been the beneficiaries of a miracle here, and we’re convinced that it is due to your diligent prayers.  The support has been unbelievable, as we’ve received dozens of inquiries from as far as New Zealand, Australia, and Brazil.

While we can never thank you enough, please know that we are so grateful for “praying us thru” this situation. 

While I meant to send this e-mail out yesterday, I kept getting interrupted with trips to pick up cattle.  At this point, we are only lacking 6 of our Devon cows (out of about 134 initially being swept away), and only 4 of our commercial herd!

This is astounding when compared to many of our neighbors.  In fact, our bordering downstream neighbor across the river has only found 29 of their 110 cows, with most other cow losses seen at around 40% (at this time).

Granted, all herds are showing massive calf losses, as we sustained purebred Devon calf losses of 32 calves on this side of the river, and an estimated 10-15 commercial calves across the river.

We are just about exhausted from the constant searching, and have been in the water so much that our feet are blistered and legs are chaffed.  The insect bites have also been terrible, but I’m certainly not going to gripe about that given our results.  

On a much sadder note, Joel Campora’s body was found at 10am on Sunday morning, about a 1.5 mile downstream from where they found Cody’s.  Cody’s funeral is tomorrow, and he leaves behind a wife and four children.

Joel’s funeral is Friday, and he leaves behind a wonderful wife and two beautiful young girls (Dacie-age 8 and Bethany-age 3).  While we knew Cody as an acquaintance, we knew Joel very well.

We’ve been told that Cody took the life-vest away from another deputy as he was entering the boat, and told him “I’m going on this one”.  Joel was trained in water rescue and scuba recovery, so he was definitely capable of the task.

Cody was extremely fit as well, but they just didn’t have a chance with the house imploding on them as they entered it to carry the two elderly women to safety.

There was another boat on the scene as well, and they couldn’t get it started to assist.  The officers were moving trucks/trailers to safety from rapidly rising water, and were looking across as Joel’s boat made it to the house.

They said they could see that the boat had made it to the house during a lightening flash, and then heard a large crash shortly after, with the next lightening flash revealing that everything had disappeared. 

When I think of Joel, the words that come to mind are:  tall…he was 6’5” or 6’6”, smile…he always had one on his face, laugh…he had a goofy one, action…he always wanted to be doing something, and committed…to the cause of Christ.

I’ve heard that Cody was much the same, which is really why this community is suffering so much over this.  These were two men we simply couldn’t afford to lose, and we’ll need to pray earnestly for others to step up.

Thanks for your prayers for us, and continued prayers for these families. 

With Love,

Greg