ST. LOUIS — Five people were killed in Missouri when heavy rains caused flash floods across the state. Two of them were in their 70s and worked as poll workers.
Two days of rain brought up to 8 inches (20 centimeters) of rain to some parts of Missouri. This caused widespread floods and the need for dozens of water rescues. It was part of a storm system that caused tornadoes in Arkansas and Oklahoma.
Around 4:30 a.m., flooding at Beaver Creek took away a car carrying a 70-year-old man and a 73-year-old woman in Wright County, Missouri, which has about 19,000 people and is 210 miles (340 kilometers) southeast of Kansas City. A state patrol report said on Tuesday. It took more than four hours for the couple from Manes, Missouri, to be found dead.
Wright County Clerk Loni Pedersen said that both of the people who died were working at the polls.
In an email, Pedersen said, “This is a terrible loss for Wright County.” “They were devoted citizens who cared about free and fair elections.”
The police said that three people in two other cars that were swept away by the fast-rising creek were able to swim to safety.
In St. Louis County, there were two more deaths. On Tuesday morning, firefighters were called to the area of flooded Gravois Creek near Interstate 55 to help with a report of an SUV that was underwater. There was a woman inside the car who was declared dead after crews broke through the sunroof and pulled her out.
After a few hours, Brice said, a man’s body was found in the same flooded creek. The police were looking into how the body got there. Brice said that firefighters saved 10 more people from flooded cars.
Monday, a 66-year-old man’s body was found in Ironton, Missouri, after his car was swept off a bridge. Ironton is about 90 miles (145 kilometers) south of St. Louis.
Monday, the National Weather Service said it was possible that four tornadoes, and maybe even more, hit parts of Oklahoma and Arkansas. The storms were not blamed for any deaths or injuries.
A spokesperson for the Oklahoma Department of Emergency Management, Keli Cain, said that damage evaluations were being done.
Yesterday, tornadoes hurt at least 11 people in the Oklahoma City area in central Oklahoma. Today, the storms hit.
Cain said that his department worked with the Oklahoma State Election Board to make sure that there were no problems at the voting places.
Source: Flash flooding blamed for 5 deaths in Missouri, including 2 poll workers
