The Kansas City Star
(TNS)
First responders rescued a woman who was clinging to a tree in the middle of the rushing waters of Indian Creek near Wornall Road in Kansas City Monday afternoon. Morning storms swelled the creek past flood stage as first responders brought the woman to safety.
After the rescue, the woman told The Star she had been camping near where she was rescued, close to the Three Fountains Apartments, and lost most of her belongings.
After the water came up, the woman said she began to yell for help. Firefighters were able to reach her in an inflatable raft.
“Somebody in one of the back apartments here I guess heard me, thankfully, I don’t know how,” she said. “I’ll have to figure out who that is one of these days and thank them.”
“It wasn’t really that deep, it just moves really quick,” she said.
Firefighters were called to the area around 1 p.m. after a passerby called 911, said Battalion Chief Michael Hopkins with the Kansas City Fire Department. First responders found the woman about 50-75 yards off the bank in a tree line in the middle of the creek, he said.
“The water had risen quite a bit with the rain this morning,” Hopkins said.
After she was brought to shore, the woman was checked over by first responders, and she declined any further treatment.
“If you live in this area, work in this area, around these creeks and other creeks and areas that typically flood here in our city when the storms roll in, particularly as much water as we’ve had here in the last week, just remain situationally aware,” Hopkins said. “If that water starts rising, try to get up and out and away from it. It can quickly come up on you.”
Storms dumped water on the Kansas City metro Monday morning, prompting the National Weather Service to issue a flash flood warning as local waterways began to rise.
Indian Creek reached 22.3 feet, about two feet above flood stage, at nearby Stateline Road around 1:30 p.m., according to the weather service. Indian Creek was expected to fall below flood stage late Monday afternoon and continue to fall to 10.4 feet by early Tuesday afternoon.
Earlier Monday, a woman died in a flash flood while walking along a Johnson County creek, near West 155th Street and Nall Avenue in Overland Park. It was not known whether she had drowned or suffered a medical emergency, a spokesman for the Overland Park Fire Department said.
The Star’s Robert Cronkleton contributed reporting to this story.
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