AFP/Chicago
Weary residents still cleaning up from a series of deadly tornadoes which ripped across the central US laid out sandbags yesterday to protect homes and business from record flooding.
Larry Harpole helps his wife Gail as they walk from their flooded home in Paducah, Kentucky
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 US 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 said.
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 tomorrow.
“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.
