RAIN, RAIN GO AWAY; CITY RUNS OUT OF BARRICADES CLOSING ROADS AND INTERSECTIONS

The flooding may not be over for Cape Girardeau area residents grappling with rain-soaked car engines and damp basements.

Torrential rains could drench the area again this morning, the Paducah, Ky., National Weather Service office predicts. But dry weather is forecast for the weekend, thanks to a cold front expected to move in from the northeast tonight.

More than 5 inches of rain fell on the Cape Girardeau area Thursday, most of it from 9 a.m. to noon. The National Weather Service said 5.76 inches of rain fell at the Cape Girardeau Regional Airport from midnight Wednesday through 1 p.m. Thursday -- the most the city has seen at one time in two years.

The latest rain came on top of more than an inch that fell on the area Wednesday, also causing flooding in Scott City and Jackson, Mo.

Flooding closed numerous Cape Girardeau intersections, but the brave still inched forward through rising waters. Cars stalled and emergency crews rescued trapped motorists.

Lori Woeltje's car stalled in over 2 feet of water at the corner of West End Boulevard and Independence Street as she was taking her three children to the baby-sitter.

"It didn't really look that deep," said the soaked 27-year-old Cape Girardeau woman. "I thought I could get through, but then I just got stuck. My car stopped."

Her husband, who drives a wrecker, pushed her car through the flooded intersection.

Mike Douglas of Cape Girardeau got stuck in high water on Broadway near Caruthers.

"I wish they had put the street closed' sign a few more feet back," he said after he pushed his car into the Dave's Bar-B-Que parking lot.

Barricades ignored

After the city used up its supply of road barricades, portable stop signs and cones, public works crews and other employees used cars to block intersections.

The measure was necessary to keep people from driving around barricades, a common occurrence during storms, said acting Cape Girardeau Fire Chief Mark Hasheider.

Even with manned blockades, there were still plenty of gawkers standing outside, he said.

Lightning caused numerous power outages beginning around 7:30 a.m. Thursday. The storm left about 8,000 AmerenUE customers without power in the Cape Girardeau area and northern Scott County.

Power was restored to nearly all customers by midafternoon, said Doug Groesbeck, AmerenUE district manager.

The morning outages came just as AmerenUE crews had finished restoring power to about 5,500 electric customers from Cape Girardeau through the Bootheel who were left in the dark from Wednesday's storm.

Other cities affected

Five families were evacuated for a short time from Jefferson Street in Jackson, which received 4.25 inches of rain in six hours. Jackson closed its city park to keep people away from swollen Hubble Creek.

In Scott City, floodwaters covered Main Street and several other roads. Even city hall, which also houses the police and fire station, got wet when drainage ditches overflowed.

"At the police station, they had several inches of water on the floor," said city administrator Erika Glock.

Off-duty city employees were called in to help set up road barricades and replace manhole covers dislodged by the storm water.

"Every intersection in town was flooded, just about," said Cape Girardeau Fire Department battalion leader Tom Hinkebein. "We had lots of basements leaking and roofs dripping. There were a tremendous amount of people stranded."

City rescuers made two unsuccessful attempts before finally reaching a woman whose van stalled on a high section of LaCroix near Lynwood Baptist Church. The two-member team battled brush and other debris to reach the van, which was submerged to the bottom of its rear door. They worked their way through chest-deep water to rescue the woman.

University buildings wet

Flooding closed several intersections around Southeast Missouri State University. Water flooded the basements of Southeast's crime lab and a house on Henderson that is home to the university relations office.

"We thought we had a waterfall for a while," said the crime lab's Rhonda Veilinger, who watched the water flow in from the basement stairs.

"We just got really dumped on," she said. For a time, a section of Henderson Street near the crime lab looked more like a lake, she said.

During the height of the storm, crews at Southeast Missouri Hospital dealt with a broken roof drain.

The weight of water rushing through the drain caused the pipe to break, said hospital plant engineer Jim Kaempfer. The break dumped thousands of gallons of water into the hospital's material management offices and warehouse before crews could reconnect the pipe.

Lightning damaged a kitchen air conditioner at the hospital, but patient areas weren't affected by the storm, Kaempfer said.

Staff writers Scott Moyers and Tamara Buck contributed to this report.