13 deaths linked to storms in central US
Record or near-record flood crests were forecast at several
towns in Missouri. Flooding was reported in large areas of Arkansas
and parts of southern Illinois, southern Indiana and southwestern
Ohio, and schools were closed in parts of western Kentucky because
of flooded roads.
"We've got water rising everywhere," said Jeff Korb, president
of the Vanderbugh County, Ind., commissioners.
The National Weather Service posted flood and flash flood
warnings from Texas to Pennsylvania.
After two days, rain had finally stopped falling by Wednesday
afternoon in much of Missouri and Arkansas as the weather system
crawled toward the Northeast, drenching the Ohio Valley and
spreading snow over parts of northern New England. A parallel band
of locally heavy rain stretched from Alabama and Georgia to the
mid-Atlantic states.
Atlanta police closed some downtown streets in case the stormy
weather knocked down more broken and debris from buildings damaged
by Friday's tornado.
In Ohio and other areas, the rain fell on ground already
saturated from heavy snowfall less than two weeks ago.
A foot of rain had fallen in sections of southern Illinois and
at Mountain Home, Ark., and Cape Girardeau, Mo., while 6.2 inches
fell at Evansville, Ind., the weather service said.
Five deaths were linked to the flooding in Missouri, five people
were killed in a highway wreck in heavy rain in Kentucky and a
65-year-old Ohio woman appeared to have drowned while checking on a
sump pump in her home. In southern Illinois, two bodies were found
hours after floodwaters swept a pickup truck off a rural road.
Searches were under way in Texas for a teenager washed down a
drainage pipe, and two people were missing in Arkansas after their
vehicles were swept away by rushing water.
Searchers in Missouri found the body of Mark G. Speir Jr., 19,
on Wednesday about 2 miles downstream from where he was reported
swept into a creek the previous evening.
"He was going down the creek screaming and hollering,"
Lawrence County emergency management chief Mike Rowe said.
An estimated 300 houses and businesses were flooded in Piedmont,
a town of 2,000 residents on McKenzie Creek. Dozens of people were
rescued by boat.
Outside St. Louis, the Meramec River was threatening towns
including Eureka and Valley Park, where Chandra Webster's kids ran
bags of toys and clothes to the car while she moved boxes of
belongings to the second floor and her husband moved furniture out
of harm's way.
"It's a lot of work, but it's worth it to save your stuff,"
Webster, 34, said Wednesday. "In '82 we lost everything when I was
a little girl. I don't want to put my kids through that."
The Meramec hit a record 39.7 feet that year; flood stage is
only 16 feet. A levee completed just three years ago is designed to
hold a flood of 43 feet, three feet above the crest forecast for
later this week.
Valley Park alderman Steve Drake helped fill sandbags with other
volunteers.
"We've got everybody working together," Drake said. "It's
going to be interesting."
Widespread flooding in Arkansas had washed out some highways and
led to evacuations in some areas, said Tommy Jackson, a spokesman
for the Arkansas Department of Emergency Management. The Highway
and Transportation Department reported state roads blocked in 16
counties.
Some residents of southern Illinois had to evacuate. In Marion,
firefighters in some cases used their own fishing boats to rescued
13 residents of the city's housing authority.
Key roads were closed in the Cincinnati area, where water 4 feet
deep was reported in businesses in the suburb of Sharonville,
police said.
Ohio rescue workers were busy helping people out of cars swamped
by the flooding.
"The biggest problem has been people driving into floodwater,"
Young said. "There are a lot of stupid people. When that sign says
'Road closed, high water,' that's what it means."
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Associated Press writers Terry Kinney in Cincinnati; Paul Weber
in Dallas; Chuck Bartels in Little Rock, Ark.; Marcus Kabel in
Springfield; Jim Salter, Cheryl Wittenauer and Christopher Leonard
in St. Louis; and Chris Blank in Jefferson City, Mo., contributed
to this report.