50-Acre Reservoir Empties Out

The stone retaining wall around a mountaintop reservoir in the Ozarks collapsed before daybreak Wednesday, releasing a 1-billion-gallon torrent of water that swept away at least two homes and several vehicles and critically injured three children, authorities said.

The 600-foot-wide breach opened up just after 5 a.m. at a hydroelectric plant run by St. Louis-based utility AmerenUE, and in 12 minutes, the 50-acre reservoir had emptied, turning the surrounding area into a landscape of flattened trees and clay-covered grass.

Gary Rainwater, AmerenUE chairman and chief executive, said it appeared that the plant’s automated instruments had pumped too much water into the reservoir and caused it to rupture. A backup set of instruments should have recognized the problem but didn’t, and the utility was trying to figure out why, AmerenUE said.

Trucker Greg Coleman was hauling a load of zinc when a wall of water emerged from the darkness and slammed into his truck near the Taum Sauk Lake Hydroelectric Plant.

Coleman said he climbed onto the truck’s roof and heard a man screaming for help. The man’s home had been washed away, and his wife and three children were missing.

Rescuers searched for an hour before finding the family of Jerry Toops, superintendent of a state park near the reservoir, huddling 500 yards from where their home had stood.

“Pretty much all of them were in shock,” Fire Chief Ben Meredith said.

The children -- ages 7 months, 3 and 5 -- were in critical condition at a hospital in St. Louis, 120 miles northeast.

The reservoir, built in 1963, was dug out of the top of 1,590-foot Profit Mountain.