Fort Smith, Arkansas - 30 May 2019

++AUDIO AS INCOMING++

1. Pan of flooded homes

2. SOUNDBITE (English) Capt. Nakia Crims, Arkansas Game and Fish Commission:

"It's... it's pretty bad. I don't think I've ever seen anything quite like this. A lot of homes, a lot of properties damaged. It's kind of sad."

3. Tracking shot of flooded neighborhood from boat

4. SOUNDBITE (English) Capt. Nakia Crims, Arkansas Game and Fish Commission:

"I think it's going to take a while to go down, so I just hope that everybody, just be sure and heed the barricades and the warnings that you're getting from the police departments."

5. Tracking shot of flooded neighborhood from boat

6. SOUNDBITE (English) Kenny Ward, Tent flooded:

"I was out here on the streets and I had everything on my back. You know, all of my important paperwork - my birth certificate's gone. Everything is gone."

7. Tracking shot of flooded neighborhood from boat

8. SOUNDBITE (English) Kenny Ward, Tent flooded:

"Clothing, my tent, my sleeping bag, my medicine. Everything. Whatever - I came back to where my camp was, it was flooded and this is what I had on. That's all I have."

9. Tracking shot of flooded neighborhood from boat

10. SOUNDBITE (English) Kenny Ward, Tent flooded:

(emotional, crying) "The last two days, I filled up sand bags - these were my neighbors. These were people that I depend on and when they need me, they can depend on me. (Kisses cross on necklace) My savior is ultimate in my life. I'm just a man. I'm just a man."

11. Tracking shot of flooded neighborhood from boat

12. SOUNDBITE (English) Cynthia Palmer, Tent flooded:

"We were in the tent when the storm come and it flooded out - wet our whole tent down where we had to get out."

13. Tracking shot of flooded neighborhood from boat

14. SOUNDBITE (English) Cynthia Palmer, Tent flooded:

"We got food down there that's probably no good anymore. But we made it out with our lives and that's what counts."

15. Tracking shot of flooded neighborhood from boat

The Arkansas River held steady at record levels Thursday, putting enormous pressure on aging levees and offering little relief to areas enduring historic flooding.

Officials expected hundreds of homes to flood in Fort Smith, Arkansas' second-largest city.

In nearby Van Buren, officials warned that a levee protecting a mostly rural area was "showing signs of significant leakage and deterioration."

Residents in flooded regions along the swollen river filled temporary shelters and wondered what will be left of their possessions when they finally return.

"Everything's gone," said Kenny Ward, a 53 year-old ex-Marine who sheltered with dozens of other flooded-out residents at the Evangel Temple Assembly of God Church in Fort Smith.

Ward said he had been living in a tent along an Arkansas River tributary before floodwaters forced him out a week ago.

His tent containing clothing, medication, sleeping bag and birth certificate was surrounded by waist-high water when he returned to the site three days ago, he said.

Ward said he walked around for five days afterward helping to fill sandbags for his neighbors who were trying to protect their homes.

"These are my neighbors. These are people I depend on," Ward said. "When they need me, they can depend on me."