Flooding Claims 20 Lives In 3 States

Relentless thunderstorms dropped up to a foot of rain on parts of Minnesota and Wisconsin, bursting riverbanks, engulfing cars and forcing rescuers to pluck residents from rooftops. Twenty deaths in three states have been blamed on the flooding — six each in southeastern Minnesota and Oklahoma, and eight in Texas.

Search and rescue operations in Minnesota are ongoing across the hard-hit southeastern part of the state.

Dozens of homes are under water, entire towns have been evacuated, and hundreds in southeastern Minnesota and western Wisconsin are homeless and huddling in shelters, reports CBS News' Ben Tracy.

In Minnesota's Winona County, one couple died when their vehicle plunged into a 30-foot gully in a road near Witoka, while another couple died when their vehicle was swept into a ditch. Rescue workers in Winona County searched for a 37-year-old man whose car was found upside down next to a creek near a highway rest stop.

A mudslide in Brownsville, Minn., reportedly lifted houses off their foundations and pushed them over a bluff. Eight people in the houses survived.

Among the hundreds of people evacuated in Minnesota were several who spent a harrowing night on their rooftops, including Sean Wehlage and his girlfriend.

"I cannot describe the terror of it all. I'm just glad to be alive," said Wehlage, 29, who climbed onto the roof of his one-story home in Stockton.

Gov. Tim Pawlenty ordered 240 National Guard soldiers to help with flood-relief and security. The governor declared a state of emergency in six counties and the Army Corps of Engineers was using pumps and generators to avoid levee breeches along the Root and Mississippi rivers.

With more rain in the forecast, the City Council of Houston, Minn., ordered an evacuation of the town of 995 people. Stockton, with 803 residents, was evacuated, as well, and evacuations also took place in Pickwick and Elba and parts of Winona, which sits on the Mississippi River.

Houston County Sheriff's dispatcher Dwayne Beckman said 14 roads and highways had been closed, bridges were washed out and mudslides were reported countywide.

Houston County authorities were keeping a wary eye on the dike that protects that small city from the rising Root River. According to Beckman, the river was at 19 feet "and the dike is good to 20 feet."

Remnants from Hurricane Erin produced winds of more than 80 m.p.h. and dumped 9 inches of rain in some places, leaving at least eight people dead. In an unusually rainy summer for East Texas, flooding over the weekend killed six people and forced about 1,000 others to evacuate homes in Abilene.

Searchers found the body of Juan Pablo Zaragoza, 28, on Saturday afternoon less than a mile from where the truck he was in with his father got washed off a bridge and into a creek. Authorities found the body of the father, Juan Ramon Zaragoza, 48, on Friday.

The storms in Houston killed three people, including two who died when a roof over a grocery store's storage unit collapsed. The third victim was a trucker who drowned when his 18-wheeler went
into a deep retention pond.

In San Antonio there were two deaths. A man was swept away by floodwaters after he got out of his car; his body was found about three miles downstream. And authorities found the body of a woman swept away after her vehicle went into a drainage ditch.

In Taylor County, searchers on horseback found the body of Rita Johns on Saturday afternoon, hours after her vehicle was found washed off the road in an area called Coronado's Camp.

Also in Taylor County, about 1,000 evacuated Abilene residents were allowed to return to their homes and all streets were reopened Sunday night as floodwaters began to subside, said city spokeswoman Lenka Wright. A handful of houses and businesses were damaged when Elm Creek spilled from its banks after heavy rainfall.

Tropical storms usually weaken and die after making landfall, but Erin gained a second wind on Sunday and looked like a landlocked hurricane in the middle of the heartland, reports CBS News correspondent Hari Sreenivasan.

Roads and several schools in the Oklahoma City area were closed Monday because of the flooding while some schools that were to be open would not be sending school buses on their routes.

Oklahoma Gov. Brad Henry planned a helicopter tour of flooded areas.

The dead in Oklahoma included a rural Fort Cobb woman who drowned in her cellar, and three women who were killed south of Carnegie when floodwaters swept their van off a highway.

A helicopter plucked two people from floodwaters near Kingfisher, Okla. Bernice Kriptenbrink, who was with her husband in a pickup truck that became trapped in floodwaters, fell from the helicopter into the water as she was being flown to safety, but Kingfisher County Sheriff Dennis Banther said she wasn't seriously injured. Her husband was also rescued safely.

Describing the event to CBS Early Show anchor Julie Chen, Bernice said the floodwaters appeared suddenly: "We were driving on the highway and it was just like instantly the floodwaters were there. Everyone has told us that they have never seen them rise that quickly."

Kingfisher Fire Chief Randy Poindexter arrived aboard a rescue helicopter to give them life vests and then lift them out of the raging waters. But the rescue effort did not pass without incident.

"Randy was pointing at me to give him my hand, and then when he would get close, he would motion, because of course we couldn't hear each other or anything," Bernice said. "And I gave him my hand and he was trying to get me on. And, of course, I slipped, and went into the water."

"How scared were you when you slipped?" asked Chen.

"Well, I guess at that point you don't really have too much time to think about being scared," Bernice said. "I had the life preserver on that they had dropped to us. And I just floated. So then he started to give me directions again. And the next time he was able to pull me up."

Fire Chief Randy Poindexter told Chen the procedure used for both trapped victims was to move them from the swift-running waters where the Kriptenbrinks' truck was stuck and move them to calmer water, where they could be hoisted onto the chopper more easily. But Bernice fell off out of his grasp and off the helicopter's skids into the raging water.

The helicopter crew "got me in there 20 seconds after she dropped, they made a circle, went back around and hooked onto her and got up on the skid," Poindexter said.

The same slip occurred with Leroy.

"When it was my turn, Randy here stuck his hand out and grabbed my hand," Leroy said, "and pulled me up over the skid on the helicopter. And I had both arms wrapped around it and I couldn't hold on anymore and I fell. And then they came back and got me the second time."

The dramatic rescue was captured and broadcast via a CBS Affiliate KWTV news helicopter, which meant that the Kriptenbrinks' daughter in Utah was watching her parents' rescue on live TV.

"There were a few tears shed by both sides," Bernice said of their conversation afterwards. "And she just wanted to know if we were okay. It was kind of hard to talk to her at first."

Poindexter credited the Oklahoma Highway Patrol members who were flying that day: the pilot, Lt. Brian Sturgill, and Trooper Joe Howard who were assisting him. "My part wasn't really that difficult."

"The Oklahoma Highway Patrol got us in there where we needed to be and got both victims out safely. I thank God for them every day."

Elsewhere in Oklahoma, heavy rainfall caused the roof of a nursing home in Geary to collapse, but there were no injuries and the residents were all transported to another nursing home.

Flood conditions forced the temporary closure of Interstate 40 near El Reno. Traffic was backed up for miles after a creek overflowed and sent water across the roadway.

In Wisconsin, Gov. Jim Doyle declared a state of emergency in Crawford, Richland and Vernon counties, where he toured affected communities Monday. The state had no reports of deaths.

The state estimated Vernon County had at least $9.5 million in damage, Doyle said during a stop in Viroqua. That number is likely to rise as damage reports continue to come in, he said.

Richland County had an estimated $3.1 million in damage, said Donna Gilson, a spokeswoman at emergency management's Madison headquarters. Damage estimates for the other counties had not been
issued Monday morning.

In the Crawford County communities of Gays Mills and Soldier Grove, each with about 600 to 640 residents, a total of more than 200 homes were flooded. Some houses had water 4 feet deep, said Donna Gilson, a spokeswoman at emergency management's Madison headquarters.

As night fell Sunday, downtown Gays Mills was still covered by a lake of coffee-colored water that overflowed from the nearby Kickapoo River.

Amanda Crayne, 26, of Gays Mills, said she woke up at first light Sunday and noticed water had reached her dining room windows. She dialed 911 as she frantically tried to wake the six children in her house, ages 6 months to 9 years. Within minutes firefighters took everyone out through knee-high water on the first floor of Crayne's home.

"I grabbed diapers and baby wipes and formula and that was all I grabbed," Crayne said as she hunkered down with the children at a Red Cross shelter at North Crawford School on Sunday night. "As long as the kids made it, I don't care about anything else. The rest of it doesn't matter, it's replaceable."

Emergency officials evacuated 66 people from one nursing home in Soldiers Grove to other nursing homes around southwestern Wisconsin. They also evacuated 23 people from an apartment complex in Soldiers Grove.

"It hit hard and fast," said Crawford County emergency management spokesman Gary Knickerbocker.

Signs of the flooding were stark throughout the region Sunday afternoon. The bluffs and hillsides were pockmarked by mudslides and tree limbs covered the roads.

June Jones, 52, has to cross a creek to get to her mobile home in Richland Center. Neighbors Joy Rux, 77, and her husband, Einar Rux, 85, knocked on Jones' door Sunday and told her police said they should leave.

Even though their homes were on high ground, the rising creek threatened to leave them stranded, said Jones, who uses a walker.
"Scary," Jones said.

Said Joy Rux: "It looked like the Mississippi. It came up so fast."

The three were among about two dozen people, mostly elderly, at a Red Cross shelter Sunday night.

Jones said she hoped to return home Monday but "we all grabbed a pillow before we left."

A mudslide in Vernon County pushed a house onto state Highway 35, forcing emergency officials to close the highway, Gilson said.

Five cars of a 65-car train sitting on tracks a half mile south of Goose Island in Vernon County derailed and the area around the derailment was evacuated, Getter said. One car that contained acid tipped over, but hazardous materials teams didn't detect any release of the substance, she said.

The bad weather also forced the cancellation of more than 200 flights at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport, with delays there averaging two to two-and-a-half hours.