Tears Flow as Floodwaters Rise Into More Midwestern Homes

Rescuers used helicopters and all-terrain vehicles Thursday to carry large numbers of people from flooded homes, watching some break into sobs as their homes began filling with water, authorities said.

Thousands of volunteers labored feverishly to save towns threatened by rising water as the Red River, forming the border of North Dakota and Minnesota, broadened into giant lake.

A measure of relief was felt when the river’s projected crest was lowered by about a foot because of a previously mistaken reading of a stuck gauge. Today’s crest was expected to be 38 feet, still 21 feet above flood stage, but below the city’s 40-foot-tall dike. However, officials warned of further crests if the weather warms and tons of ice and snow layering the landscape begin melting.

In Kent, Minn., the frozen bodies of a 29-year-old pregnant woman and her 3-year-old daughter were found in a field, raising the region’s death toll to eight in the past two weeks.

Pamela Jean Wagner and her daughter, Victoria, had managed to crawl out a window of their submerged car Wednesday after it was swept off a bridge by the overflowing Whiskey Creek.

Soaking wet with the temperature at 8 degrees, they walked for more than three hours and got within yards of a farmhouse when more water blocked their way. They collapsed and died in the field, frozen and exhausted.

Wilkin County Sheriff Tom Matejka said the woman apparently carried the girl some of the way.

“She just walked and fell to the ground, couldn’t make it anymore,” he said.

The recent cold weather turned the vast flood plain in eastern North Dakota into a lumpy ice-skating rink for at least two men, who decided to skate several miles to pick up a generator to get power to their unheated home.

“It was cute at the time, but now we’ve had to evacuate them by boat,” said Sgt. Kim Murphy of the Cass County sheriff’s office near Fargo.

“Another guy called asking to be rescued,” Murphy said. “He said, ‘I live on the Wild Rice River. No wait. I live in the Wild Rice River.’ ”