CHICAGO (AFP) – Weary residents still cleaning up from a series of deadly tornadoes which ripped across the central United States laid out sandbags Friday to protect homes and business from record flooding.
Hundreds of people have been driven from their homes by the rising waters as National Guardsmen and civilian volunteers struggle to build temporary levees.
“There are records here being broken that go back to 1927,” said Pat Slattery, a spokesman for the National Weather Service.
Much of the flooding comes from the same weather system which sparked the deadliest tornado outbreak in the United States since 1925, which claimed the lives of 350 people across the US south.
That massive storm sucked moisture out of the Gulf of Mexico and brought two weeks of heavy rain to the Mississippi and Ohio River valleys before it finally moved out to sea, Slattery told AFP.
Tributaries across the region have also flooded after the ground became saturated and scores of roads have been closed as the rivers breach their banks.
One Tennessee florist has been using paddle boats to get to her greenhouse and retrieve plants and flowers slated for delivery for Mother’s Day on Sunday.
“If God would just take his pinky finger and do whatever he does and blow the water away, man we’re ready,” Teresa Nance, who owns Bayless Greenhouse in Millington, told WREG news.
