IN TOO DEEP: STAYING ALIVE IN A FLASH FLOOD

Like many drivers Thursday, 16-year-old Matt Ward was sure his car could make it through the water.

But it didn't.

"I could see the dip in the road, but I didn't think it was that deep," said Ward, who had to crawl out the window of his Chevrolet Cavalier when it stalled in more than a foot of water on Westfield Drive.

The nearly 6 inches of rain that turned Cape Girardeau roadways into canals and put some intersections 7 feet under water last week showed that more drivers need to respect water, police and firefighters said.

"They drove up to some places and decided it didn't look that deep, that it was probably 3 inches or so, like a pot hole," said Cpl. Rick Schmidt of the Cape Girardeau Police Department. "Then they drive in, and water's coming through the bottom of the door."

At Hawthorne and Hopper roads, where 8 feet of water accumulated in the intersection, Schmidt had to stop drivers who wanted to go through. A man in a Nissan pickup truck who wanted to pass argued with Schmidt.

Cape Girardeau interim fire chief Mark Hasheider was amazed that police, fire and public-works personnel had to park at several intersections to keep drivers from going around barricades.

Drivers who cut through standing water when it's high enough could find themselves floating, Hasheider said.

"Depending on the depth of the water, there is no guarantee that a car will end up with four tires on the road," he said, pointing out that water can give a car buoyancy in certain circumstances.

Tow trucks busy

Tow truck operators were flooded with calls. Some stranded drivers were forced to wait more than an hour for help, Mark Carnell, who operates Carnell's Garage and Wrecker Service, said.

"We lost a lot of business because there were so many people waiting," said Carnell.

One of Carnell's drivers responded to a woman stuck on Bloomfield Road only to be redirected by police to William and Highway 74, where a car reportedly drove off into a ditch and trapped the driver.

"We had to put off a lot of our regular customers because they didn't have emergencies," Carnell said.

Seabaugh's towing pulled 18 cars out of the water on Thursday, which was double an average day, driver Robert Mouser said.

"They all kept saying that they should've stayed at home," Mouser said.

Ward would have made it home after picking up his 13-year-old sister from church, he said, but he made a wrong turn.

After pushing his car out of the water, he said he tried to warn approaching drivers of the danger while he waited for his father.

"Some of them drove in anyway, and some of them made it," Ward said. "We helped push out the ones that didn't."