Water rescues underway in Arkansas after a new wave of storms across US and Canada
YELLVILLE, Ark. — Water rescues were carried out in Arkansas on Wednesday after a new wave of heavy storms that have battered much of the U.S. and Canada, officials said. High winds, tornadoes and flooding have caused damage or deaths from the Plains to New England this week.
As much as 11 inches (28 centimeters) of rain fell in parts of Marion County, Arkansas, in the Ozark Mountains on Wednesday night, the National Weather Service reported.
“Numerous bridges in the area have been washed away as water rescues take place,” the weather service said. “Evacuations are taking place as water rises in homes and businesses.”
Storms toppled trees and damaged homes around Keene, New Hampshire, on Tuesday. Storms also caused damage in upstate New York. Several major roads around Toronto were temporarily closed due to flooding, the Canadian Press reported Wednesday.
Severe weather has hit the Chicago area particularly hard. The weather service reported 17 tornadoes this week in northern Illinois and northwestern Indiana, including 11 during a single series of freak storms Monday night.
Utilities continued to restore power across the Midwest, though 115,000 homes and businesses were still without power in Illinois and Indiana on Wednesday, officials said. PowerOutage.us.
An elderly couple died when their car was submerged in a flash flood near Elsah, Illinois, north of St. Louis. Mill Creek rose rapidly Tuesday afternoon after several inches of rain, flooding their SUV, the Jersey County Sheriff’s Office said in a news release. An 88-year-old woman was found dead in the vehicle. Hours later, the body of an 88-year-old man was found near the creek’s bank.
The sheriff’s office credited a 911 caller for helping save a 70-year-old man who was in another vehicle. The caller instructed the man to climb through his sunroof. Water was over the roof when rescuers arrived.
In Rockford, Illinois, a 76-year-old man who was a passenger in a pickup truck drowned when the vehicle became stuck in a creek during a storm Sunday, authorities said. The driver survived.
Earlier it was reported that a 44-year-old woman in Cedar Lake, Indiana, in the southern suburbs of Chicago, had died after a tree fell on her home Monday evening, the Lake County coroner’s office said.