LITTLE ROCK, Ark.—A stormy weather system that once was Tropical Storm Bill prompted flood warnings across the Ozarks and mid-Mississippi Valley early Friday, even before rains began to fall there in earnest.
Since coming ashore Tuesday along the Texas Gulf Coast, the tropical system has claimed at least one life — that of a 2-year-old swept from his father’s arms as they tried to escape a raging Hickory Creek in Ardmore, Oklahoma. The region just north of the Texas border had 10 inches of rain Wednesday night and Thursday.
“The water was just flowing like a river down the streets,” Amber Wilson, the emergency manager in Ardmore, said after the overnight downpour. “It was so forceful that it washed away the barricades and pushed manhole covers out of the streets,” she said. Even giant trash bins gave way to the water.
