GIRL ESCAPES SERIOUS INJURY IN INTERSTATE 55 ACCIDENT

A toddler suffered only minor injuries in a freakish accident that trapped her in a car seat.

"When we were first told about it, they said that there was a possibility she was dead," said Mary Job of Kelso, Mo., whose daughter and granddaughter survived a serious wreck on Interstate 55. "When we walked into the hospital and saw her sitting up, we just about fell over."

Rebecca Job was driving north on the interstate about 9:40 a.m. when her tires began to lift off the road surface and spin out of control on the wet pavement. She struck a guardrail, which was rammed through the rear of the vehicle and trapped 2-year-old Savannah Job in her car seat.

It took Cape Girardeau firefighters about 10 minutes to get Savannah out of the car.

Rebecca Job and her daughter were transported by ambulance to St. Francis Medical Center. Rebecca Job had suffered a broken tailbone and pelvis from the crash. Savannah was released with minor injuries.

Wet conditions contributed to another series of accidents near the 86-mile marker of Interstate 55, Scott City police reported. A pickup flipped over about 3:15 p.m., followed by a rear-end collision involving vehicles driving past the truck.

Man receives shock while helping neighbor

Driving on slick roadways wasn't the only hazard caused by the storm. Firefighters responded to numerous calls involving fire and electricity, and electrical lines were felled in several parts of the city.

A resident at 212 S. Lorimier was shocked while helping a neighbor move belongings from a wet basement apartment. Cape Girardeau Fire Department battalion chief Tom Hinkebein said the man was treated at the scene and refused further treatment.

"He either grabbed hold of a TV or lamp or something and received a shock," Hinkebein said. "That one could have been more serious than what it was, too."

Water collapsesbasement wall

"Holy cow!" Bill Mayfield exclaimed as he came home from work to find one of his basement walls completely gone as a result of all the rain.

Mayfield, who has lived in his West End Blvd. residence for 45 years, said he thought it was odd to see the Cape Girardeau Fire Department on his street, but he assumed it was something to do with the neighbors.

"Then I walked closer and saw the neighbor kids pointing at my house," he said.

Cape Fire Department Captain Paul Breitenstein said that the fire department got a call from the neighbors about 3 p.m., who thought the structural damage had been caused by a bolt of lightning.

Upon closer inspection, Breitenstein and the rest of the department discovered the damage had been caused not by a bolt of lightning, but by all the saturation in the grass next to the wall. They also discovered broken gas and water lines, and gas leaking into the house.

They opened all the windows and aimed a giant fan at the house to get the gas out, Breitenstein said.

This was the scene Mayfield came home to. "Well, I'd been dealing with this all day at work," said Mayfield, who works with the Parks and Recreation Department. "We had a lot of leaks in our building. Then I came home and found this."

But Mayfield managed to keep his sense of humor.

"Well, it needed a new wall anyway," he said, laughing. "Now it's just halfway there."

Drug court boxes wet; office computer saved

Steve Narrow with the drug court office in Jackson, Mo., didn't think too much of the heavy rain at first -- until he noticed that his boxes on the floor were getting wet.

Narrow investigated and found out that water had filled the concrete stairwell leading down to the outdoor entrance of his office, and was seeping in through the doors.

"I got those boxes out of the way real quick," he said.

The office sent someone from their maintenance crew to go get a wet vac to clean the mess, but his van stalled out while traveling through high water on his way, Narrow said.

"It was just a comedy of errors," he said, laughing. "I hope it doesn't happen again."

Narrow said he and the rest of the staff had to mop and vacuum out their offices for nearly an hour and a half, but nothing was damaged, despite the four inches of water on the floor.

"I stood near the computer on my desk with a squeegee," he said. "That was the one thing I didn't want getting wet."

Narrow said that although the episode was "pretty wild," the maintenance crew got on it fast, and the tile floor in the offices prevented water damage.

"So we put our snorkels and flippers away, and got out the mops and sprayed the Pine-Sol," he said. "Now, we don't even smell that bad."

Backyard pool overflows with runoff

Annie Burton, a senior at Southeast Missouri State University, was working at her job in the campus bookstore off of Henderson Street when the rains started.

"We heard all the fire truck sirens and everything," Burton said.

Burton said she and her fellow employees stood outside the bookstore and watched the flooded street.

"The stop sign on the corner (of Henderson and Normal Ave.) was flooded," she said. "The cars were going through, and it just looked like they were going through a river."

Burton said the police department eventually closed the road down after a car ran into a tree.

Burton arrived at her family's home on Oak Hills Drive around noon to find her basement undamaged, but the backyard pool filled nearly to overflowing.

"It's OK," she said. "I expected it because we had the rain the night before. We'll just have to pump and drain it out."

-- Tony Hall, Beth Lewis, Tamara Zellars Buck