Rain and Floods in Central USA Killing

Rain and Floods in Central USA Killing

April 2008 - At least 13 people have 
lost their lives in drenching rain and floods spanning the central United 
States in the past 48 hours. Three others are still missing. 
The National Weather Service has issued flood and flash flood warnings 
from Pennsylvania across the country to Texas. Rivers and streams are 
overtopping their banks in Missouri, Arkansas, parts of southern Illinois, 
southern Indiana and southwestern Ohio, and in western Kentucky where five 
people died in a highway accident in pouring rain. 
Missouri Governor Matt Blunt declared a state of emergency across the 
entire state on Tuesday. Today he called on President George W. Bush to 
quickly approve disaster declarations for both individual and public 
assistance for 70 Missouri counties and the City of St. Louis. 
Up to 10 inches of rain has swollen rivers and streams, forcing residents 
from their homes and killing at least five Missourians, the governor wrote 
in his letter to President Bush. 
One of those killed was a Missouri Department of Transportation worker who 
died during the storm while setting up a barrier to keep drivers off a 
flooded roadway. 
"The current flooding conditions are causing great hardships on 
Missourians who are being evacuated from their homes, rescued from trapped 
vehicles, or are separated from their families," said Governor Blunt. "I 
have directed all state resources to be available to assist in the rescue 
and recovery efforts in the affected areas." 
The U.S. Coast Guard has joined state agencies in the State Emergency 
Operations Center, SEOC, to deal with water rescue missions in the 
southeast part of the state. 
The town of Piedmont, Missouri, population 2,000, was evacuated Tuesday 
due to flooding, according to the Missouri Highway Patrol. Several dozen 
people were rescued by boat. 

SEOC is coordinating state resources to assist local governments with 
their emergency protection actions - water rescues, mass care and 
sheltering operations, monitoring road closures, security and 
transportation missions, drinking water, sanitary sewage, energy supplies, 
debris, and status of regulated dams, coordinating health and safety 
visits for long-term care facilities and other vulnerable populations, and 
contacting long-term care providers in the affected areas to determine 
needs for back-up power or other critical needs. 
Preliminary damage assessments will be requested as soon as flood waters 
recede enough to allow access to damaged areas. 
Emergency responders from the Missouri Department of Natural Resources 
were dispatched Tuesday to help capture an estimated 20 propane tanks that 
were washed away by flood waters in Reynolds County. 
Five residential propane tanks were torn from their stations by a 
flood-swollen Pikes Creek and an additional 15 propane tanks in Logan 
Creek. 
The department's Southwest and Southeast Regional Offices are working with 
public water systems and wastewater treatment facilities in the affected 
areas to determine the effects of the flooding on drinking water 
availability. Boil orders are being issued throughout the region.

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