Stories of rescues, devastation emerge from floods

PENSACOLA, Fla. -- Valencia Norton awoke to a neighbor pounding on the windows of the mobile home she shared with a friend. Water had washed away her steps and part of the porch. She grabbed a small bag of clothes and waited.

"I was freaking," said Norton, tears streaming down her face as she recalled the scene. "I don't know how to swim."

A short time later, a firefighter came by and carried her to dry land. It was one of many rescue stories from the single rainiest day ever recorded in Pensacola, and another tale of survival after days of relentless storms across the U.S., beginning with deadly and destructive tornadoes Sunday in the Midwest.

On Monday, the violent winds wrecked parts of Tennessee and Mississippi, but by the time the storm system arrived in the Panhandle, the devastation was all water.

CBS News correspondent Mark Strassmann reports from Pensacola that in one neighborhood the raging water busted underground pipes, sending natural gas shooting into the air.

Meanwhile, an explosion at the county jail in Pensacola may have been related to the flooding. The blast leveled part of the jail, killing two inmates and injuring more than 150 inmates and corrections officers.

The system was expected to bring heavy rain and thunderstorms to the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast regions Thursday.

Meteorologist Megan Glaros of CBS Chicago station WBBM-TV reports that the threat of flooding extends from Virginia up to Massachusetts. The Carolinas may also face isolated areas of severe showers and thunderstorms from Thursday into Friday.

In Florida, people were plucked off rooftops Wednesday or climbed into their attics to get away when nearly 2 feet of rain dropped on the area in the span of about 24 hours. Roads were chewed up into pieces or wiped out entirely and neighborhoods were inundated, making rescues difficult for hundreds of people who called for help when they were caught off guard.

Boats and Humvees zigzagged through the flooded streets to help stranded residents. A car and truck plummeted 25 feet when portions of a scenic highway collapsed, and one Florida woman died when she drove her car into high water, officials said.

Near the Alabama-Florida line, water started creeping into Brandi McCoon's mobile home, so her fiance, Jonathan Brown, wrapped up her nearly 2-year-old son Noah in a blanket and they swam in neck-deep water to their car about 50 feet away.

Then, the car was flooded.

"Every which way we turned, there was a big ol' pile of water," she said.

Brown called 911 and eventually a military vehicle picked them up and took them to a shelter.

Kyle Schmitz was at his Pensacola home with his 18-month-old son Oliver on Tuesday night when heavy rain dropped during a 45-minute span. He gathered up his son, his computer and important papers and left.

"I opened the garage and the water immediately flowed in like a wave," he said. "The water was coming up to just below the hood of my truck and I just gassed it."

Schmitz and his son also made it out safely.

In Alabama, Capt. David Spies of Fish River/Marlow Fire and Rescue said he was part of a team who found two women and a young boy trapped in the attic of a modular home.

Spies said they received the first call of help before midnight Tuesday but they couldn't find the group until about 8 a.m. Wednesday. By then, the water was 2 feet below the roof. A firefighter used an axe to punch a hole through the roof and free them.

"They were very scared, they were very upset. I would've been, too," Spies said.

There were at least 30 rescues in the Mobile area of Alabama. Florida was hit harder. Gov. Rick Scott said officials there received about 300 calls from stranded residents.

At the Pensacola airport, 15.55 inches of rain fell on Tuesday before midnight - setting a record for the rainiest single day in the city, according to data since 1880. By comparison, the airport in drought-stricken Los Angeles has recorded 15.9 inches of rain - since Jan. 1, 2012.

Pensacola and nearby Mobile are two of the rainiest cities in the U.S., averaging more than five feet of rain in a year, according to the National Climatic Data Center. Los Angeles in a normal year gets a bit less than 13 inches of rain.

"It tells us the wet places are getting wetter and the dry places are getting drier in the U.S. and that's the future climate expected in the U.S.," said Jeff Masters, meteorology director of the private Weather Underground.

The National Weather Service said forecasters issued flash flood warnings as early as Friday, yet many people were still caught unaware.

Elizabeth Peaden was at her weekly Bunco game Tuesday night and it wasn't raining on her way there. On her way home, she drove her van through a flooded intersection and got stuck.

"I was scared out of my wits. Water started coming in and I wasn't sure what to do," she said.

Peaden waded her way to a nearby American Legion post where she and about 20 other stranded travelers spent the night sleeping on tables or the floor.

The widespread flooding was the latest wallop from a violent storm system that began in Arkansas and Oklahoma and worked its way South, killing 37 people along the way, including a 67-year-old driver in Florida.

Pensacola Police Chief Chip Simmons said two vehicles fell 25 feet when portions of a scenic highway collapsed. The truck driver was fine, but a woman in a car needed help getting out. Neither had serious injuries, Simmons said.

By Wednesday afternoon, the storm marched its way up the East Coast. Emergency officials in Maryland said crews rescued motorists stranded in high water and a block-long sinkhole opened up, swallowing several cars.