A massive and sudden downpour, totaling possibly up to 7 inches in places, caused flash flooding leading to rescues, evacuations and fear for human life overnight (July 1-2) in south Jefferson County.
At about 10 a.m. today (July 2), Hematite Fire Protection District Chief Bob Hipes Jr. said authorities were searching for two drivers.
Witnesses reported two cars with one person in each were swept away at Buck Creek Road and Hwy. 67, south of Festus, sometime after 9 p.m. Wednesday (July 1).
“The vehicles have been located but there was no one inside either vehicle,” Hipes said.
He said the State Highway Patrol and Water Patrol had spoken with the families of the vehicle owners, and neither driver had contacted the families.
Hipes said several fire departments have joined Hematite in searching for the missing people.
Two mobile home courts south of Festus were evacuated from 10-11 p.m. Wednesday, said Warren Robinson, director of the Jefferson County Emergency Management Office.
About 80 people were evacuated from Lakeside Manor mobile home park off Hwy. 61 and Lifestyle Mobile Home Park along Hwy. 67, about 40 from each community, Robinson said.
A temporary shelter was set up at Telegraph Intermediate School, 1265 Dooling Hollow Road, in the Jefferson R-7 School District for people affected by the flooding. Volunteers with the American Red Cross were there, serving meals and snacks, and offering health services.
Robinson said damage assessment teams were going to each mobile home court this morning, and no one was able to return home.
He said he had heard of no injuries associated with the evacuation, but a couple of residents were taken to the hospital for treatment of pre-existing conditions.
Lifestyle Manor was flooded by Buck Creek and Lakeside was flooded by Plattin Creek, he said.
Robinson said there were other evacuations across the county. North Jefferson County, however, was mostly spared, he said.
“The heaviest rainfall started around Cedar Hill and moved south through Hillsboro down to Hematite and the southeast corner (of the county),” he said.
County gauges only go up to 5 inches, and that level was reached in places, Robinson said, with reports of 7 inches from some areas.
De Soto Rural Fire Protection Chief Paul Mayer said this morning his department made nine rescues overnight.
“Four rescues were in the Victoria area and five were along Castle Ranch Road,” Mayer said. “We only used a boat on one of the rescues,” he said. “We did rescues from homes and trees. Their cars had been swept off the road. They got out of their cars and climbed trees. It was just a crazy night.”
Animals swept away
Becky Lowry, who lives just off Hwy. 21 about two miles south of Hillsboro, said two cows and six calves are missing from her farm, and she believes they were swept away during the flash flooding last night.
Lowry said she’s “been on the farm for 45 years” and has never seen flash flooding like that before.
While she was out driving today, Lowry saw three houses on Victoria Road between Hillsboro and Victoria damaged or destroyed by the flash flooding.
“They are off their foundations or crumbling,” she said.
Lowry said her son has rental property in Victoria and the tenants were near their home in a vehicle that was swept into a creek by the flash flooding and traveled one mile before the woman was rescued from the vehicle and the man out of a tree.
She said a bridge that recently was built at Castle Ranch and Hwy. 21 was damaged, too.
Hospital ER flooded
Mercy Hospital Jefferson in Crystal City took an inch or two of water in its emergency department from flash flooding, causing the relocation of 22 patients and the emergency department itself.
Hospital spokesman John Winkelman said this morning (July 2) that most ER calls are being diverted.
“EMS is being asked to take transfer patients and non-critical patients to other facilities,” he said. “They’re only bringing life-threatening situations.”
Critical patients were moved to the nearby infusion center, which used to serve as the overflow area for the emergency department. Non-critical patients were moved to the hospital’s conference center.
He described the water that got into the facility as at “shoe level, but not ankle level.”
Winkelman said a cleanup is underway and the hospital expects the emergency department to be back in place by Monday.
“Everything else is operational. Admitting, which is kind of connected to emergency, is moved upstairs as well,” he said.
The water entered the building from the emergency department parking lot, which two days earlier was the site of a groundbreaking ceremony for a new private patient tower Mercy will build.
Winkelman, who has worked at the hospital for 11 years, said he had never seen floodwater come into the building from the south side. A nearby dry creek, between the hospital and Airport Road, that drains into Plattin Creek is thought to have backed up from heavy rain and an already-high Plattin.
The water flowed in over the location of the planned patient tower. Whether those plans will have to be altered was unknown Friday.
“I’m sure it (the flooding) will be considered,” Winkelman said.
Power outages
Hundreds of Ameren Missouri customers in southern Jefferson County were without power as a result of the storm. By 10:32 a.m. Thursday, there were 378 outages reported in three hardest-hit communities of Festus, De Soto and Hillsboro, down from 869 reported outages earlier this morning.
Jeff Trammel, spokesman for Ameren, said there was a concern Wednesday night that a De Soto power substation might flood, but high water didn’t reach the facility.
Road closures
The Jefferson County Emergency Management Office reported on its Facebook page that the following roads were closed as of about 9 a.m. this morning:
Clayton Huskey, Klondike, Boyce, Haverstick School and Victoria (between highways 67 and CC).
Crews were working to clear debris from and repair those roads so they could be reopened, the office reported.
In addition, some roads that are open but still may have some debris on them include:
Laguna Palma, Hyfield, Hillsboro Victoria, Victoria Cemetery, Redbird, Johnson, Dittmer Ridge, Dittmer Catawissa, Flucom (at two locations), Carron, Long, Sunnyside and Whitehead, according the Emergency Management Office.
Sheriff’s report
Capt. Ron Arnhart of the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office said deputies responded to a lot of calls because of the heavy rains and flash flooding, but he didn’t know of any accidents or injuries.
He said area fire districts and departments handled the more serious calls.
“We were checking on things, like debris on roadways,” Arnhart said. “We were busy with calls, but just typical things when you get that much rain.”
Rainfall
Wednesday night’s thunderstorm dumped between 3 and 6 inches of rain on a band across south-central Jefferson county, said Ben Miller, meteorologist with the National Weather Service in St. Louis.
“It looks like Hillsboro, De Soto and Festus were the axis of heaviest rain,” he said.
The heaviest official report was 4.86 inches from a weather observer in De Soto, Miller said. Another weather observer in Dittmer reported 4.32 inches of rain. He said the radio station in Festus reported 2.65 inches of rain. Rain is measured for a 24-hour period.
“I have no doubt someone in that area got even more than that,” Miller said.
He said people should keep an eye to the sky over the weekend.
“We are forecasting the possibility of scattered showers and storms through the weekend, but it doesn’t look like the same sort of set up that brought last night’s storm,” Miller said.
Festus
Sunshine Drive in west Festus remained closed at 11 a.m. Thursday as the Joachim Creek continued to flow out of its banks, city officials said.
A combination of Wednesday night’s downpour and creek flooding resulted in as much as four feet of water on the baseball fields at West City Park. The park shed had about two feet of water inside. However, the park concession stand, the nearby sewage lagoon and animal shelter all remained dry.
“The water was about 20 feet away from the dog kennel,” City Administrator Happy Welch said. “The police department was checking throughout the night.”
During the storm, flash flooding closed several city streets for a short period. “It was all fine this morning,” Welch said.
Mayor Mike Cage said that the city had received a few reports of property damage from residents. “We can’t really do the assessments until the water recedes,” he said.
Members of the Festus Fire Department helped neighboring departments with water rescues.