Extreme Heat adds to US flooding misery
Pastor Dale Morgan
Extreme Heat adds to US flooding misery*
* Story Highlights
* Temperatures near 100 expected in Midwest
* Emergency declared in nine flooded Ohio counties
* AP: Death toll from rising water at 26
* Schools cancel classes because of heat
(CNN) -- The worst flooding in almost a century forced hundreds of
people from their homes in the upper Midwest, with more rain and high
temperatures expected to add to their misery Thursday.
Floodwater swamps Findlay, Ohio, on Wednesday.
"We had a mudslide off the top of the hill, and it was like an avalanche
of rock, trees and debris from the top of the hill all the way down,"
Lynn Partington of Brownsville, Minnesota, told CNN's "American
Morning." "And it just blew the sides of the house out, and the roof
dropped to the ground. Looking at the house, you'd wonder if anyone
could possibly survive, but they did."
Partington said insurance would not cover the loss of his house or its
contents.
Another Minnesota resident fared better, but her neighbors didn't. Video
Watch the toll the flooding took »
"I'm fortunate. My house is still here. I'm lucky," Cheryl Kirk said of
her 1856 house in Minnesota City.
Sixty feet of riverfront soil on her property washed away in 2½ hours
Wednesday, she told CNN. Six neighbors' homes were condemned because of
flood damage and cannot be rebuilt, but her home was spared, she said.
"It's a gorgeous house, I'm close to retirement, and I plan on staying
here until I'm gone from the world," Kirk said.
An upper-level storm system was forecast to move from the central Plains
into the Great Lakes region, bringing more rain to saturated areas,
according to the National Weather Service's Storm Prediction Center in
Norman, Oklahoma.
As of 7 a.m. ET, flood watches and warnings were in effect in Illinois,
Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, Ohio, South Dakota and
Wisconsin. Oklahoma and Texas also had flood warnings because of rain
from a different storm system.
Temperatures would reach around 95 degrees Fahrenheit (35 Centigrade) in
the Ohio and upper Mississippi valleys, the National Weather Service
forecast Thursday. Excessive heat warnings were issued for the St.
Louis, Missouri, and Cincinnati, Ohio, areas.
Including deaths from a separate storm system in Oklahoma and Texas, 26
people have died in recent flooding in the United States, according to
an Associated Press count. Photo See images of flooding from all over »
A woman and child waiting for a bus in Madison, Wisconsin, were
electrocuted when a power line fell into the wet intersection where they
were standing. A passenger who got off the bus to help also was
electrocuted, CNN affiliate WISC-TV reported.
The bus driver, who also tried to help but suffered an electrical shock,
and a child were hospitalized, the station reported.
"(The victims) were still on the ground while the smoke was covering
them. I guess they died instantly because of the shock," said Derrick
Williams, who said he was at the scene when the incident occurred. "(It
happened in) less than 3 or 4 seconds. It was so quick, like, boom,
boom, boom, boom."
Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland declared an emergency in nine counties.
"County and state emergency responders have been working around the
clock since Monday, the start of the severe storms and flooding,"
Strickland said. "With this emergency declaration, we can ensure that
state resources will be used to help affected Ohioans recover from this
disaster as quickly as possible."
Findlay, Ohio, was enduring its worst flood in nearly 100 years. See
where the waters have risen »
"This is the most widespread it's ever been," Findlay Mayor Tony Iriti
told The Associated Press.
Forty miles away in Bucyrus, Ohio, where AP said 9 inches of rain had
fallen since Monday, 200 or more people still couldn't get into their
homes by Wednesday, officials said.
"Reality is starting to set in about just how much damage there is in
some of the flooded areas," Crawford County Emergency Management Agency
Director Tim Flock told AP.
The heat was making things all the more miserable Thursday.
Cincinnati Public Schools canceled classes Thursday and possibly Friday
as temperatures flirted with 100, CNN affiliate WLWT reported.
Several schools have announced earlier dismissal times or other schedule
changes, including Ohio's Reading Schools, which closed early.
"I used to go here, and being in that building with no air conditioning
was just brutal," former Reading student Lonnie Bowling told WLWT.