Recovery efforts are under way across Missouri after days of catastrophic flash flooding that turned deadly. A state of emergency had been declared as up to a foot of rain fell in areas especially popular with campers and boaters, turning a stretch of the state into a dangerous scene and prompting an urgent, wide-ranging response from the authorities.
The flooding claimed at least one life. A woman was swept away by the floodwaters in Crawford County, about 90 minutes from St. Louis, and was later confirmed dead. Her loss put a painful human toll on a disaster that had already forced hundreds of people from the path of the rapidly rising water and left entire communities scrambling to reach safety.
In response to the emergency, Missouri Governor Mike Kehoe activated the National Guard to help deal with the consequences of the flooding. The move opened the door to a large-scale rescue and evacuation operation in the worst-hit areas, where the rising water had left people cut off and made a number of roads impassable for ordinary vehicles.
One of the most striking parts of the operation involved a summer camp caught up in the flooding. Eight military helicopters were used to safely evacuate more than 200 children and counselors from the camp, lifting them out of an area that had become too dangerous to reach or leave by road as the water continued to rise around them.
Since the flooding began on Friday, emergency crews have carried out more than 350 water rescues, reaching people stranded by the fast-moving water. As the rain finally cleared and conditions began to dry out, responders shifted from emergency rescue to damage assessment, searching the receding waters to make sure no one else remained missing across the affected area.
The danger unfolded with alarming speed. Rescuers came across a group of campers who had been forced to climb on top of their vehicles to escape the floodwater, while aerial footage of the disaster showed a campground appearing completely underwater, with submerged ground and structures surrounded by brown water when seen from above.
The National Weather Service described the downpour as a one in a thousand year rain event in some areas. That classification means there was only a 0.1 percent chance of Missouri receiving that much rain, a statistic that helps explain why the flooding developed so rapidly and why the emergency response had to be scaled up so quickly.
The situation in Missouri formed part of a wider flooding emergency that has affected several states, at a time when other parts of the country were also dealing with severe weather. The combination of heavy rain, saturated ground and dangerous conditions on the roads made this one of the most serious weather episodes to hit the region in recent days.