Rain and flooding kill 13 in 4 states

Residents of low-lying towns stacked sandbags or grabbed belongings and evacuated Wednesday after a foot of rain pushed rivers and creeks out of their banks in the nation's midsection. At least 13 deaths, including five in a collision on Interstate 65 in Kentucky, had been linked to the weather, and three people were missing.

Record or near-record flood crests were forecast at several towns in Missouri. Flooding was reported in large areas of Arkansas and parts of southern Illinois, southern Indiana and southwestern Ohio, and schools were closed in parts of Western Kentucky because of flooded roads.

Schools in Daviess, Henderson and Union counties in Western Kentucky closed due to the weather. U.S. 60 at the line that separates Henderson and Union counties was shut down because of flooding.

Henderson had gotten more than 6 inches of rain from early Monday through Wednesday afternoon, the equivalent of about six weeks of normal rainfall, The (Henderson) Gleaner reported.

National Weather Service hydrologist Mike Callahan said the rain had become less persistent throughout Wednesday and tapered off late in the day before expected clearing Thursday. Some of the flooded areas had rain totals varying from 2 inches in the Louisville area to as much as 6 inches in parts of western Kentucky, he said.

"We've got to give these creeks a chance to catch up," Callahan said.

Russell Sights, acting city manager in Henderson, said some creeks were overflowing, and low-lying areas that normally have problems during heavy rains were being evacuated.

"They are flooded," Sights said.

In Bourbon County, Townsend Creek flooded over Grimes Batterton Road, making it impassable, said fire Capt. Doug French. French said the creek regularly floods over the road there, and he expected the road to reopen when the water went down.

Multiple landslides tied up roads across the state. A mudslide Wednesday morning shut down a road in Milton, about 56 miles northeast of Louisville along the Ohio River, Callahan said. Land slippage was pushing several trees toward U.S 41 in Henderson near Audubon State Park.

The Kentucky Transportation Cabinet was trying to pull the trees down before they fell onto the roadway, said Mark Brown, a spokesman for the cabinet.

There was also a landslide along U.S. 60 near the Stanley community in Daviess County, Brown said.

The National Weather Service posted flood and flash-flood warnings from Texas to Pennsylvania.

After two days, rain had finally stopped falling by Wednesday afternoon in much of Missouri and Arkansas as the weather system crawled toward the Northeast, drenching the Ohio Valley and spreading snow over parts of northern New England. A parallel band of locally heavy rain stretched from Alabama and Georgia to the mid-Atlantic states.

Atlanta police closed some downtown streets in case the stormy weather knocked down more broken glass and debris from buildings damaged by Friday's tornado.

A foot of rain had fallen in sections of southern Illinois and at Mountain Home, Ark., and Cape Girardeau, Mo., while 6.2 inches fell at Evansville, Ind., the weather service said.

Five deaths were linked to the flooding in Missouri, and a 65-year-old Ohio woman appeared to have drowned while checking on a sump pump in her home. In southern Illinois, two bodies were found hours after floodwaters swept a pickup truck off a rural road.

Searches were under way in Texas for a teenager washed down a drainage pipe, and two people were missing in Arkansas after their vehicles were swept away by rushing water.

Searchers in Missouri found the body of Mark G. Speir Jr., 19, on Wednesday about 2 miles downstream from where he was reported swept into a creek the previous evening.

An estimated 300 houses and businesses were flooded in Piedmont, a town of 2,000 residents on McKenzie Creek. Dozens of people were rescued by boat.

Key roads were closed in the Cincinnati area, where water 4 feet deep was reported in businesses in the suburb of Sharonville, police said.

Ohio rescue workers were busy helping people out of cars swamped by the flooding.

"The biggest problem has been people driving into floodwater," said Frank Young, emergency management director in Warren County.