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Find a forecast:

ABOUT FLOODS

Resources: More
information about floods

National
Weather Service: National river flood
outlook

National
Weather Service: National current river
observations

Graphic: Why
floods are so dangerous

Graphic: How
rain, snowmelt spawn floods

Graphic: Floods
arrive on storm
train

13 dead, 3 missing in central USA
floods

Updated

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By Betsy Taylor, Associated Press
Writer

PIEDMONT, Mo. — Residents of low-lying towns
stacked sandbags or grabbed belongings and evacuated Wednesday after a
foot of rain pushed rivers and creeks out of their banks in the nation's
midsection. At least 13 deaths had been linked to the weather, and three
people were missing.

Record or near-record flood crests were forecast at
several towns in Missouri. Flooding was reported in large areas of
Arkansas and parts of southern Illinois, southern Indiana and southwestern
Ohio, and schools were closed in parts of western Kentucky because of
flooded roads.

"We've got water rising everywhere," said Jeff Korb,
president of the Vanderbugh County, Ind., commissioners.

The National Weather Service posted flood and flash
flood warnings from Texas to Pennsylvania.

After two days, rain had finally stopped falling by
Wednesday afternoon in much of Missouri and Arkansas as the weather system
crawled toward the Northeast, drenching the Ohio Valley and spreading snow
over parts of northern New England. A parallel band of locally heavy rain
stretched from Alabama and Georgia to the mid-Atlantic states.

Atlanta police closed some downtown streets in case
the stormy weather knocked down more broken glass and debris from
buildings damaged by Friday's tornado.

In Ohio and other areas, the rain fell on ground
already saturated from heavy snowfall less than two weeks ago.

A foot of rain had fallen in sections of southern
Illinois and at Mountain Home, Ark., and Cape Girardeau, Mo., while 6.2
inches fell at Evansville, Ind., the weather service said.

Five deaths were linked to the flooding in Missouri,
five people were killed in a highway wreck in heavy rain in Kentucky and a
65-year-old Ohio woman appeared to have drowned while checking on a sump
pump in her home. In southern Illinois, two bodies were found hours after
floodwaters swept a pickup off a rural road.

Searches were underway in Texas for a teenager washed
down a drainage pipe, and two people were missing in Arkansas after their
vehicles were swept away by rushing water.

Searchers in Missouri found the body of Mark G. Speir
Jr., 19, on Wednesday about 2 miles downstream from where he was reported
swept into a creek the previous evening.

"He was going down the creek screaming and
hollering," Lawrence County emergency management chief Mike Rowe said.

An estimated 300 houses and businesses were flooded
in Piedmont, a town of 2,000 residents on McKenzie Creek. Dozens of people
were rescued by boat.

Outside St. Louis, the Meramec River was threatening
towns including Eureka and Valley Park, where Chandra Webster's kids ran
bags of toys and clothes to the car while she moved boxes of belongings to
the second floor and her husband moved furniture out of harm's way.

"It's a lot of work, but it's worth it to save your
stuff," Webster, 34, said Wednesday. "In '82 we lost everything when I was
a little girl. I don't want to put my kids through that."

The Meramec hit a record 39.7 feet that year; flood
stage is only 16 feet. A levee completed just three years ago is designed
to hold a flood of 43 feet, three feet above the crest forecast for later
this week.

Valley Park alderman Steve Drake helped fill
sandbags.

"We've got everybody working together," Drake said.
"It's going to be interesting."

Gov. Matt Blunt said he was seeking a federal
disaster declaration for 70 of Missouri's 114 counties and the city of St.
Louis.

Widespread flooding in Arkansas had washed out some
highways and led to evacuations in some areas, said Tommy Jackson, a
spokesman for the Arkansas Department of Emergency Management. The Highway
and Transportation Department reported state roads blocked in 16
counties.

Some residents of southern Illinois had to evacuate.
In Marion, firefighters in some cases used their own fishing boats to
rescued 13 residents of the city's housing authority.

Key roads were closed in the Cincinnati area, where
water 4 feet deep was reported in businesses in the suburb of Sharonville,
police said.

Ohio rescue workers were busy helping people out of
cars swamped by the flooding.

"The biggest problem has been people driving into
floodwater," said Frank Young, emergency management director in Warren
County. "There are a lot of stupid people. When that sign says 'Road
closed, high water,' that's what it means."

Contributing: Associated Press writers Terry Kinney in Cincinnati;
Paul Weber in Dallas; Chuck Bartels in Little Rock; Marcus Kabel in
Springfield; Jim Salter, Cheryl Wittenauer and Christopher Leonard in St.
Louis; and Chris Blank in Jefferson City, Mo., contributed to this
report.

Copyright 2008 The
Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Posted

Updated

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To report corrections and
clarifications, contact Reader Editor Brent
Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send
comments to [email-masked]. Include
name, phone number, city and state for
verification.

Enlarge

By Paul Davis,
Daily American Republic/AP

A
Piedmont, Mo., family is rescued from their flooded home
Tuesday, March 18, 2008, by members of the Missouri State
Water Patrol and State Highway Patrol.

Fedex driver
Jay McMullin helps 78-year-old Odell Bunch into the delivery truck
after Bunch's Ford Ranger was swept away by flood waters in Jackson,
Mo., on Tuesday, March 18, 2008.

By Aaron Eisenhauer,
Southeast Missourian/AP

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