Flooding in Midwest and East Leaves 22 Dead and 1 Missing

SISSONVILLE, W. Va. —  Rescue crews in boats went door to door Monday, taking people to dry ground, after thousands in West Virginia were cut off by flooding. At least 22 people were dead and one was missing after a weekend of storms in the East and the Midwest.

A break in the heavy rains allowed rescue crews to take people by boat across the swollen Pocatalico River, whose waters were so high they lapped across the top of a stop sign.

David Weaver waited on dry land for a boat to bring his family to him. He said it was the second flood he had endured--and the last.

“There will be a ‘For Sale’ sign on my house. It will say, ‘It’s a fixer-upper,’ and, ‘Buy as is,’ ” he said.

Several thousand people were isolated by floods in Kanawha County, the hardest-hit area, said Bill White, the county’s emergency services director.

In Clendenin, where nearly 8 inches of rain fell in two days, mud and debris slid down the clay hills, coating the roads.

Among the three victims in West Virginia were a 4-month-old baby and a blind man in a wheelchair who were swept away Sunday by flood waters in Frame.

Eleven people died in Ohio, including a 16-year-old struck by lightning. A storm dumped up to 9 inches of rain in several counties by Monday morning. More rain was expected later in the day.

“You can hear it. It just sounds like an ocean down there,” said Barbara Fabian of Cambridge, whose cattle farm was near a rain-swollen creek. “We have cattle, but we haven’t seen them for two days. They’re up in the woods somewhere in high ground, where I wish I was.”

Elsewhere, two people were dead and one missing in Minnesota since Friday; one person died in New Hampshire; one in Maryland; one in Wisconsin; and three in New York.