Deadly Storm Hits Kansas City
Orlando Hudson had left home in a downpour to get medicine for his 3-year-old daughter. But the worst flooding in the area in more than 20 years trapped his car on a bridge that was quickly vanishing beneath a rising creek.
"I'm going to have to jump or I don't know what I'll do," he told his wife from a car phone Sunday night. Hudson ditched his car and clambered to the nearest and highest ground - a truck where four others had taken refuge, waiting for rescuers.
A man tried to toss them an extension cord. Firefighters tried to launch a boat and stretch a ladder to the group but failed. Brush Creek - an 11-mile flood control waterway that flows through Kansas City - rose up and washed away all five.
"They were swept right over," said a man who tried to help with the rescue efforts. "Right over in there. You know, after that, I just lost it and left. I couldn't take it."
As quickly as the creek rose, it receded, leaving the curious to tug in the debris wedged between the guard rails by the water's force.
Hours later, the body of the 27-year-old Hudson was recovered 100 yards downstream, tangled in the branches of a tree along with the body of Bonita Black, 43, and another victim who had been clinging to the truck. The other two were still missing Tuesday.
Their fate was one of the stories that emerged Monday as Kansas City recovered from the area's worst flooding since a 1977 deluge killed 25 and caused $100 million in damage.
Correspondent Brian Curtis of CBS Affiliate KCTV in Kansas City reports that six inches of rain in one hour left Kansas City with a long and lasting album of misery.
Southwest Boulevard - always among the first parts of the
city to flood - was awash in water up to the hoods of stalled trucks. Firefighters used a boat to rescue employees stranded in a convenience store.
A 9-year-old boy, John Parmerlee, drowned behind his home in the neighboring town of Blue Springs. A woman identified as Azalech Zewuda, 57, was found dead near a creek in Kansas City.
Two motorists Walter Knott, 83, and Kenneth W. Tucker Jr., 27, were killed across the state line in suburban Johnson County, Kan. Knott was swept away when he left his stalled car, and Tucker's body was found a half-mile from where his car sat in a creek.
The storm followed days of drenching rain and overpowered storm sewers and flooded scores of homes and businesses. The American Royal Building - a complex used for horse shows and rodeos - sustained about $2.5 million in damage, Mayor Emanuel Cleaver said.
It could be a while before things dry out: Flash flood watches were posted overnight in many areas, and roads were closed from central Missouri to the hilly Ozarks in the southwest, due to the threat of another 3 inches or more of rain.
CBS "This Morning" Meteorologist Craig Allen reports that with more rainfall on the way, the flooding may go on for severl days. The storm is moving slowly and siphoning moisture from the Gulf Stream.
In eastern Oklahoma, a half-foot of rain fell on Monday, closing about a dozen schools and forcing residents from 50 homes in Miami, in the state's northeastern corner.
The American Red Cross set up shelters for people fleeing the Neosho River, which was expected to crest 10 feet above flood stage this morning.
Flooding and a power outage in Southwestern Bell Telephone's main building in downtown Tulsa knocked out phone service in downtown and some outlying areas Monday. The outage also silenced the telephones at Tulsa's 911 center for almost an hour.