A foot of rain – maybe more – has fallen in part of southwest Missouri, enough to isolate the small town of Pleasant Hope for a time. Pleasant Hope has about 700 people. It’s in Polk County. A town spokesman says water has pushed several homes off their foundations and has flooded city hall. A pork processing plant has been used as an emergency shelter. The Police Chief in Walnut Grove asked people to stay away from the town, which was marooned for a while by high water.
One woman whose car stalled in rising water grabbed a log that was floating by and hung onto it for about an hour before she was rescued.
Lightning is blamed for a mobile home fire near Fruitland, in Greene County, that killed an elderly man.
Several roads and bridges had been washed out. A 20-foot span near Miller was washed downstream about sixty feet.
