Violent flash flooding fueled by a wave of powerful thunderstorms tore through the Ozark Mountains in rural southeastern Missouri on Friday, leaving hundreds of people stranded in rising waters along the Black River, according to authorities.
National Guard crews flying Black Hawk helicopters spent Friday afternoon airlifting approximately 200 stranded individuals to safety from Camp Taum Sauk in Lesterville, Missouri — a community located roughly 100 miles south of St. Louis — according to State Highway Patrol Sergeant Eddie Young.
Young said about half of those evacuated from the summer youth camp were children, with the remainder being counselors and other staff members.
Elsewhere along the river in Reynolds County, rescue teams using boats pulled three additional stranded people from the floodwaters later in the day. As of Friday evening, no deaths had been reported in connection with the flooding.
Earlier that day, the Reynolds County Sheriff’s Office reported that emergency responders had already rescued more than 90 people from floodwaters that had swallowed homes, campsites, and vehicles.
Joann Franklin was among those rescued. She told St. Louis television station KMOV-TV, a CBS affiliate, that she, her husband, their dog, and their cat were pulled from the roof of their home. “This is the highest that the water’s ever been, and I’ve lived here since 1979, so (almost) 50 years,” she said.
The situation grew dangerous for rescuers as well — two boats carrying emergency workers capsized in the churning floodwaters. All crew members were safely recovered downstream by fellow responders, the sheriff’s office said.
An additional 20 to 30 people who had been listed as missing in Reynolds County were later found safe or rescued, Young said. That group included people who had reportedly been swept off the roof of a building when it collapsed into floodwaters at the Bearcat Getaway Campground. One person remained unaccounted for in neighboring Crawford County as of Friday.
Washed-out roads across the region made it difficult for emergency crews to check on riverfront campgrounds, but search teams planned to return to those locations once the water levels dropped, Young said.
The Black River and surrounding waterways were overwhelmed after a series of thunderstorms dropped between 6 and 12 inches of rain on the area overnight and into early Friday morning, according to the sheriff’s office. More rain was expected to fall Friday night across the already saturated region.
Several counties in the mountainous Lead Belt area of southeastern Missouri, in the eastern Ozarks, bore the brunt of the flooding, officials said. However, dangerous storm conditions and the threat of additional flooding extended across a much broader area.
The National Weather Service issued flood watches covering parts of eight states affecting more than 21 million people — stretching from Missouri eastward through southern Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, and Tennessee, and northward into West Virginia, Ohio, and western Pennsylvania.
Missouri Governor Mike Kehoe declared a state of emergency in the flood-affected areas to help streamline coordination between state and local agencies and speed up the delivery of disaster relief.
