A state of emergency has been declared in Missouri after a bout of severe flash flooding swept across the state. According to CBS, the emergency was issued as up to a foot of rain fell in areas that are especially popular with campers and boaters, turning a stretch of the state into a dangerous scene and prompting an urgent response from the authorities.
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.
Elsewhere, rescuers came across a group of campers who had been forced to climb on top of their vehicles to escape the floodwater. The image of people perched on their cars, waiting to be reached by the emergency teams, underlined how quickly the situation had escalated and how suddenly the water had risen in places used for outdoor recreation.
Aerial footage of the disaster showed the scale of the flooding, with a campground appearing completely underwater when seen from above. The view from the sky captured submerged ground and structures surrounded by brown water, offering a clear picture of just how much rain had fallen over the affected part of the state in a short period of time.
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 affecting several states across the Midwest, 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.