Levees are built alongside rivers to offset their flooding, but officials are watching to see if the levees themselves could spark evacuations.
The Dardanelle Levee on the Arkansas River breached, with water moving quickly early Friday, said Meteorologist Jeff Hood of the National Weather Service in Little Rock.
Yell County Judge Mark Thone told CNN affiliate KATV that he urged everyone in the area to evacuate immediately.
Most people were able to evacuate before the breach, Hood said.
"We think the levee may breach and completely collapse within itself and then we will have a wide-open hole there of water ... I believe it could be soon," Thone told the station.
More than 500 homes have been directly impacted by flooding in Arkansas already, state emergency spokeswoman Melody Daniel told CNN.
And if the levees breach, many more could be in the path of flooding.
Thousands of homes affected
The biggest concern is in the unprecedented pressure the flooding has put on the levees: they have never held back this much water for this long, the Arkansas Department of Emergency Management said Wednesday.
Crests are expected in five places.
Flooding could affect thousands of homes in 14 counties near the river, ranging from minor damage to destruction, Daniel said. Two levees -- one of them in Logan County along state Highway 309 -- have overtopped so far, but none has failed, Daniel said.
"This is looking to be record breaking all along the Arkansas River, and this is something we have never seen before," she said.
Gov. Asa Hutchinson sent a letter to President Donald Trump requesting that he declare a state of emergency for 15 counties in the state, but that number is expected to increase.
Mandatory evacuations in Missouri
Arkansas isn't the only state worried about the overflow of its rivers and levees. States along the Mississippi are experiencing their own threats from the rising water levels.
A levee failure on the Mississippi River has caused a mandatory evacuation of residents in West Quincy, Missouri, the Marion County Sheriff's Office told CNN.
And according to the Missouri Department of Transportation, more than 300 roads are under water, with the potential for more to come.
Emergency flooding
The Army Corps of Engineers New Orleans district announced that while it will be later than expected, they plan to operate the Morganza Floodway on June 9.
The floodway is designed for emergency flooding and when operated, diverts excess floodwater from the Mississippi River to the Atchafalaya Basin, according to the Army Corps of Engineers.
The operation of the floodway itself can cause damage to property of those surrounding, the department said.
It was only been operated twice before: once in 1973 and once in 2011.
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