Deluge Claims 3 More Lives in Virginia

ROCKY MOUNT, Va. —  Three bodies were dragged from a pickup truck that crashed into a 25-foot-deep hole in a washed-out road, raising the death toll Thursday to at least six after eight straight days of rain in Virginia.

At least two other people who were washed away by floodwaters on Tuesday, including a 3-year-old girl, were still missing as rain and the threat of more flooding hindered searchers.

Coast Guard helicopters rescued 25 people and a pet parrot stranded by the high water, raising to 250 the number of people airlifted to safety since the rains began. Many were plucked from trees, rooftops and vehicles stranded in several feet of streaming current.

It is Virginia’s worst flood damage and the most extensive search-and-rescue effort in a decade, said Janet Clements, a state Department of Emergency Services spokeswoman.

About 3,000 people had been forced from their homes Wednesday as rain drenched the Shenandoah Valley, southwestern Virginia and the Piedmont region east of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

National Guardsmen supplied drinking water and other necessities and helped clear debris in areas where flooding contaminated water and cut off electricity to wells. Those areas included Buena Vista, Syria, Wolftown and Lexington.

Forecasters blamed the rain on two similar high-pressure systems--one in the Atlantic off the Georgia-Carolina coast and the other over New England--that have been spinning dense and water-filled air toward the region.

With rain persisting, authorities in Warren County, near the Blue Ridge Mountains in the northern part of the state, suspended their search for a 3-year-old carried away by a flooded creek. The search continued in Madison County for a woman swept away when the Robinson River snatched her house from its foundation.

Besides the three bodies found Thursday, the dead include a rescue worker and a motorist who drowned when a dam near Lynchburg broke a week ago, and a man who drowned Tuesday.