(Image still by CNN/KTVI)
Even if it doesn’t rain another drop in Missouri, Kathy Wunderlich’s home in West Alton may still get flooded.
Recent deluges have engulfed towns, homes, fields and roads in deadly floodwater. Though the storms are gone, the rivers have kept rising from Texas to Illinois.
In West Alton, near St. Louis, runoff pushed the Mississippi River over the levees on Tuesday, and Wunderlich was headed for higher ground with her belongings in tow.
Wednesday morning, aerial cameras captured parts of the greater St. Louis area under water. A shopping area was half submerged, a sign for a Jimmy John’s sandwich shop at the top of a building still visible above the water line.
“We emptied out our basement of anything important, which is strictly storage anyway. We cleaned out the house of clothes. Things that can’t be replaced. Important pieces of furniture,” Wunderlich told CNN affiliate KMOV.
Early Wednesday morning, rescuers reached Jean Scott’s trailer in the tiny town of Pacific, Missouri. Water was approaching her door, she said.
“They came and got us and put us in a raft and took us across the railroad tracks,” Scott said.
The rescuers took her to a nursing home where “everybody is real friendly,” she said.
But she worries that her home is devastated. No one has given her an update. And she’s also concerned about her neighbors.
“I really feel for the people. I really do. My heart goes out to them,” she said, adding that she has no patience for people who take risks.
“Some of these people on the highway trying to drive through this stuff — they’re very stupid,” she said.
Read more at http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/30/us/severe-weather-us/
