Missouri sees heavy rain, flooding

As he spoke, the rains that showed a little mercy earlier Tuesday were falling again outside Don Wynn's office.

Heavy rains pounded parts of southern and eastern Missouri early Tuesday, causing flash flooding in some areas including Iron County, where Wynn is emergency management director.

Rushing waters damaged as much as 35 percent of the county's roads and several families were evacuated from a low-lying subdivision, Wynn said.

"It wasn't as bad as it could have been," he said. "With another hour or so of rain like it was doing at about 4 o'clock Tuesday morning, we'd have really had to evacuate some people."

Wynn said no one was injured, and there were no reports of damage to homes or vehicles.

"That's a pretty butt-kicking storm that came up through here," Wynn said.

Isolated flooding closed many roads in affected areas, with some vehicles reported swept off into ditches. Runoff from the overnight storms caused some creeks and streams to overflow as more rain moved in from the southwest.

Some areas near St. Louis -- including Farmington, O'Fallon and Festus -- registered more than four inches of rainfall early Tuesday, the weather service said. As many as six inches of rain were reported in parts of the Ozarks.

In Shannon County, rescue crews pulled a man to safety after water swept his car off a county road south of Teresita, the Missouri State Highway Patrol said. He was taken to a hospital for treatment.

Another car was swept from a road in Howell County, and rescuers in Texas County were dispatched to an area near Arroll where a camper trailer was reported surrounded by water.

In Oregon County, Alton schools were closed for the day because of concerns about having buses travel through areas where water remained high. Flooding was reported along Missouri 142 in Oregon and Howell counties.

"We've had some flash floods," said Matt Simmons, a dispatcher with the Oregon County Sheriff's Department. "We've got a couple of cars off in the ditches and a couple in the creek. People thought they could make it and the water was swifter than they expected."

Butch Dye, with the weather service in St. Louis, said the second storm had mostly lighter rain than the first, but still had "pockets of heavy rain."

"All the storms we have right now will be going back over areas that received 3 to 5 inches of rainfall last night, so that's going to aggravate, if not again worsen, the flooding situation in south-central Missouri," Foster said.