At least 3 killed in flooding from heavy rain in Missouri, including 2 poll workers

By Jillian Sykes and Artemis Moshtaghian, CNN

(CNN) — At least three people drowned in Missouri, including two poll workers, from flooding caused by heavy rains that hit southern and eastern parts of the state and forced numerous road closures Monday and Tuesday, authorities said.

The flooding resulted from a powerful cold front that brought scattered tornadoes and heavy rain to the central and eastern United States those two days, including more than 7 inches of rain in St. Louis, according to the National Weather Service.

In southern Missouri’s Wright County, a 70-year-old man and a 73-year-old woman were found drowned after floodwaters from a swollen Beaver Creek swept their vehicle off a road on the early morning of Election Day, according to the Missouri State Highway Patrol. The two, both residents of Manes roughly 170 miles southeast of Kansas City, were poll workers in Wright County, the county clerk’s office said.

“They were dedicated citizens who valued fair and honest elections. They will be missed,” the clerk’s office said in a release.

“This couple were wonderful people who donated their time to serve their community.”

Near the city of Ironton, about 75 miles southwest of St. Louis, a 66-year-old man drowned after he tried to cross a flooded bridge in a car Monday, the Missouri Highway Patrol said. The floodwater swept away the vehicle, which was found about a half-mile downstream, police said.

“That area was inundated with mass flooding,” highway patrol Sgt. Clark Parrot told CNN Wednesday. The county is one of the state’s most rural and has “very hilly terrain,” which may have made it hard for first responders to get to the victim in a timely manner, Parrot said.

Authorities were investigating whether at least two other deaths were related to this week’s flooding in Missouri. In St. Louis County on Tuesday, first responders recovered the bodies of two people near Interstate 55 following intense rainfall that overwhelmed Gravois Creek and rendered roads impassable, according to county police.

Investigators found that one of the two people, a woman, may have driven her car “into the water earlier in the morning during the height of the flash flood,” county police said in a release, without elaborating. Detectives are investigating the death of the other person, a man found in the creek in the afternoon, as a “probable drowning,” county police said.

The causes of death for the woman and the man were not immediately known, and autopsies were expected, St. Louis County police Sgt. Tracy Panus told CNN Wednesday.

Ten other people were rescued in “two major rescue operations” along the flooded creek on Tuesday, the Lemay Fire Protection District said.

Parts of numerous roads in south-central Missouri and the St. Louis area were closed Tuesday because of flooding, the state transportation department said. Many of those closures – including part of Interstate 44 in Pulaski County – remained on Wednesday morning, according to an online map from the department.

St. Louis recorded 7.64 inches of rain Monday and Tuesday – the most rain in a two-day span in November on record there, according to the weather service. Other notable rainfall totals in Missouri on Monday and Tuesday: 18.52 inches just outside Salem, and 4.92 inches in Springfield, according to the weather service.

The flooding prompted Missouri Gov. Mike Parson to declare an emergency and activate the state’s emergency operations center.

CNN’s Robert Shackleford contributed to this report.

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