Posted on 07/09/2007 3:31:30 AM PDT by mylife
Search to Continue for Missing Rafter By PAUL J. WEBER 07.08.07, 4:30 AM ET
Search teams have been combing the swollen Trinity River for a missing rafter and Texans got a respite from the drenching rain that has pounded the state for nearly three weeks.
Meanwhile, the death toll from storms that have battered Texas since last month climbed to 16 Saturday with the recovery of another victim.
The 26-year-old missing man was on a rubber raft that capsized Friday on the Trinity. The search was called off for the day late Saturday but was expected to continue Sunday.
"We don't know if he's still trapped in that low-head dam or whether he went downstream," Fort Worth fire department spokesman Kent Worley said.
A companion had to swim about 300 yards against the swift current to safety, but Worley said that man never saw his friend after their raft flipped. Neither man wore a life jacket. After eight hours, crews suspended the search until morning, Worley said.
Elsewhere across the region, rivers in Oklahoma and Kansas have been receding, revealing millions of dollars in damage to thousands of homes and businesses, besides the 1,000 or so damaged in Texas. Authorities found the body of a man believed to be the flood's first fatality in Kansas.
In hard-hit Coffeyville, Kan., authorities again restricted access to residents who had been allowed back into their homes earlier in the week because of high levels of fecal coliform bacteria in the floodwater. Emergency workers have reported experiencing rashes and diarrhea.
On Saturday, President Bush issued a federal disaster declaration for Oklahoma, freeing federal funds to aid two counties ravaged by the flooding.
Along the Oklahoma-Texas state line, Lake Texoma reached the top of a 640-foot-high concrete spillway Saturday, with waves lapping over the top, the Army Corps of Engineers said. The corps has been pumping an estimated 27,000 cubic feet of water per second into the Red River to help control the lake's level.
The lake, with a normal level of 619 feet, is expected to crest about 6 inches higher than the spillway Monday.
There was only a 20 to 30 percent chance of storms in Oklahoma on Saturday and Sunday, forecaster Erin Maxwell said early Saturday.
"The activity over the weekend probably wouldn't impact Lake Texoma levels too dramatically, but there's another low pressure system coming next week," Maxwell said. "That's just the way the weather pattern has been this year."
In Texas, forecasters said severe storms appeared to be tapering. Although more storms were forecast for the coming week in Norath Texas and along the coast, the heavier rainfall is predicted to be more localized.
"We are not going to see the widespread flooding we saw in the past few weeks," said Bill Bunting, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service. "But I can't say completely we are out of the woods."
They find this guy tied up in a submerged tree when the river subsides
They find = They will find
“No life vests, no respect for the river.”
Wow, not only that, they were trying this in full flood, without a PFD.
I’m sorry this person decided to kill himself. It’s a tragedy for his family and friends.
Stupid is as stupid does
Im sure he just wasn’t thinking
You have to be not thinking awfully hard to go rafting under those conditions.
Years back.. (Way Back ) a similar fool tried rafting down the Guadalupe river in Texas at full flood.. they found him a couple of weeks later in a tree.....he had sustained in excess of 100 snake bites
I wouldn’t be surprised if a cooler of beer was involved, as well.
Heard today on the radio... “hope is beginning to fade for the rafter....” DUH !!! Only been, what - 3 days!
From my observations of Texans since I have moved here I find that (to Paraphrase Homer Simpson) Shiner Bock is the answer to, and the cause of, much of life's problems!
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