Two rivers meeting: water damage work in Mulberry
Few towns in this county sit at a confluence, and Mulberry is one of them. A fast Ozark river arrives from the north and empties into the Arkansas just south of the city limits, which is a good arrangement most of the year and a bad one when both are high. Water damage is the only work covered here; there is no fire coverage in Crawford County.
You will not be asked for an email address before anyone talks to you.
Drying and extraction work route from here. Fire and smoke work does not, because it was never purchased in this county.
A town named for its river
Mulberry incorporated on November 8, 1880 and holds 1,543 residents across 8.06 square miles, 0.23 of which is water, at an elevation of 400 feet, all of it under a single ZIP, 72947. The Census Bureau classifies the whole of the town as rural. It sits along I-40 in the Arkansas River Valley where the Mulberry River, named for the trees along its banks, reaches the Arkansas just south of town.
The town spent its first fifteen years in a different county. Mulberry lay in Franklin County until 1895, when Crawford County took it over by act of the legislature in exchange for building a bridge over the Mulberry River. A place whose county line was traded for a river crossing is not a place that gets to ignore its river.
- You callOne number per county. The dispatcher takes the address, the ZIP and a short description of what happened.
- A local crew calls backAn independent restoration contractor already working that county rings you directly and sets a time.
- They look, then scope itNothing is priced from a phone call. The crew walks the building, takes readings, and writes a scope you can hand to your adjuster.
ZIP codes covered here
72947
The list below is exact. A neighboring ZIP that is not on it is not covered from this page.
What kind of river the Mulberry is
It runs about seventy miles from headwaters in the Ozark Mountains of Franklin and Johnson counties, with 19.4 miles federally designated Scenic and 36.6 miles Recreational under the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act. It is a well-known whitewater paddling run with canoe outfitters along its banks, and rivers that are fun to paddle are rivers that rise fast.
That character has costs. In 2010 heavy rain triggered a landslide along Arkansas Highway 23 that dumped a large volume of mud and silt into the Mulberry from Mountain Creek, one of its tributaries. Rain landing in the mountains upstream is in the channel here within hours, carrying gravel, timber and mud with it, and it drops just as quickly once the rain stops.
Facts a crew would want to know
- Mulberry sits along I-40 in the Arkansas River Valley where the Mulberry River (named for mulberry trees lining its banks) empties into the Arkansas River just south of town.
- The town originally lay in Franklin County until 1895, when Crawford County took it over by act of the legislature in exchange for building a bridge over the Mulberry River.
- Severe flooding in 1923 and 1927 devastated farmland around Mulberry, prompting many residents to migrate to California for work.
- The Mulberry River runs about 70 miles from the Ozark Mountains, with 19.4 miles federally designated Scenic and 36.6 miles Recreational under the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, and is a popular whitewater paddling run with canoe rental outfitters along its banks.
The confluence problem
A tributary can only discharge into a river that has room to take it. When the Arkansas is at ordinary levels, the Mulberry empties freely and a flood here is a short, violent event confined near the channel. When the Arkansas is high, the Mulberry has nowhere to go, and its water backs up over ground that would otherwise have drained.
The Arkansas near Van Buren, 18 miles west, crested at 40.79 feet in June 2019 against a 22-foot flood stage, and at 34.63 feet in December 2015. During events on that scale, low ground near a tributary mouth stays wet far longer than the storm that caused it, and a house that took twelve inches on Tuesday may still be standing in water on Friday.
Historically the flooding here was a farm story before it was a housing story. Severe floods in 1923 and 1927 devastated the farmland around Mulberry and pushed many residents to leave for work in California. The ground that flooded then is the same ground now.
Utilities and what is being built
The City of Mulberry runs its own water and sewer utility and has broken ground on a $12.2 million water treatment plant expansion, 68 percent grant-funded, to serve new commercial and residential development. That is a substantial project for a town of this size, and it means construction, new mains and new service connections over the next several years.
New pipe is generally good news and occasionally the direct cause of a wet building. Pressure changes during main work can find a weak joint in an old private service line; a service reconnected on a Friday can develop a slow leak nobody sees until the meter reading arrives. It is worth knowing whether work has been done near your address before assuming a wet floor is weather.
The buildings themselves
This is a rural town with a mix of older frame houses, later construction and manufactured homes, in a county where 75.5 percent of housing is owner-occupied and the median owner-occupied value is $182,800. At 400 feet, Mulberry sits lower than Van Buren at 650 and Cedarville at 860, and low elevation near a river mouth shows up in crawl spaces long before it shows up in living rooms.
Access is straightforward in normal weather. Alma is 10 miles west on I-40 and Van Buren 18 miles west on the same road. The consideration during an actual flood is not the interstate, which sits high, but the local roads and low crossings between the highway and the address.
Pages for Mulberry
Water Damage Restoration
Every water damage call we route in Mulberry.
Emergency Water Extraction
Getting standing water out before it moves further into the structure.
Answers to the usual questions
How much warning does the Mulberry River give?
Not much. It drains mountain terrain, so rain upstream reaches the channel here in hours rather than days. The practical version of that is simple: if it has rained hard in the Ozarks to the north, move what matters off the floor before you can see anything happening outside.
Why does water stand for days when the river dropped in one afternoon?
Because the Arkansas below is often still high. A tributary cannot drain into a swollen main river, so the water sits on low ground until the bigger river falls. This is why cleanup timing here should be based on both gauges, not just the near one.
Is silt from the river the same as ordinary mud?
It has to be treated as contaminated. Floodwater picks up whatever is on the ground it crossed, including fuel and farm chemicals, and the 2010 Mountain Creek landslide is a reminder of how much material this drainage moves. It gets physically removed rather than dried in place.
Can I get fire and smoke help in Mulberry from this number?
No. Only water damage is covered anywhere in Crawford County on this line, Mulberry included. That is not a scheduling issue, it is what was purchased, and it will not change on a different page.
Also worth reading
What happens next is a contractor's call, made at the building with a meter in hand.