Flooding Claims 20 Lives In 3 States

(CBS/AP)  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.

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[patneuman]

I saw my ex-boss on your program talking about heavy rainfall and flooding. I was "removed" from public service by NOAA National Weather Service (NWS) for my talking about a need to account for climate change in hydrologic models used in flood prediction. My boss, at the North Central River Forecast Center, was responsible for my "removal" after I had served 29 years doing hydrologic modeling and prediction in the Midwest. He was a bad boss and a jerk. Could I sue him?

[patneuman]

I saw my ex-boss on your program talking about heavy rainfall and flooding. I was "removed" from public service by NOAA National Weather Service (NWS) for my talking about a need to account for climate change in hydrologic models used in flood prediction. My boss, at the North Central River Forecast Center, was responsible for my "removal" after I had served 29 years doing hydrologic modeling and prediction in the Midwest. He was a bad boss and a jerk. Could I sue him?

[angel1437]

Houston county is in Minnesota....Goose Island is actually in La Crosse county, not Vernon county, I think I would know, I live here.

[arealtexan]

Suggestions to those reporting this article and future similar articles:

1. A link to a map with highlighted related locations would be helpful.

2. Keep all the counties, states and towns straight. For example, I got lost at "Houston County". Is this in Houston, TX?

Thank you. Your help is appreciated.
Signed, A Senior Citizen
Posted by barbaraf4 at 09:12 AM : Aug 20, 2007
__________________________________

I got a little lost with it too, but I can answer one question, though I never saw a reference to Houston County. Houston County is actually located about 100 miles North of Houston, Texas which is in Harris County.

It gets confusing here in Texas because the county seat of Tyler County is Woodville and Tyler, Texas is located in Smith County. I used to have a book that listed the strange things like that, but it was lost in a move...

[ioweign]

I am surprised that there are 240 National Guards in the State - most were in Bush''s Iraq.

[chicagopoet]

Don''t expect any help from the government rebuilding America after this and future disasters; all they care about is Iraq.

[mudrose-2009]

It''s George Bush''s fault.

[oakishpines]

'' ...

someone asked me recently,

if there''s people building space ships that are automated with talking computers

then will the future entail people building space ships that are automated with talking people

and if they are automated with talking people,

then will tehy be maid of vinerals or of vegetables

and if they are made of vegetables and automated with talking people,

then will those made vegetables and automated talking people require a cpu

and, more importantly, then might those made vegetables and automated taqlking folk be interchangable with made folk and automated talking vegetables

... ''

[lmarie1988]

wisconsin hasnt gotten it to bad but we could beacuse it is suppose to rain all week. I hope minn doesnt get it anymore.

[olebd]

Too bad the old guy couldn''t get that mint condition Chevy up on high ground! What a waste!