A woman and a 12-year-old boy died overnight Saturday after floodwaters swept their vehicle off the road in central Oklahoma, according to police.
Police in Moore, about 10 miles south of Oklahoma City, reported “dozens of high-water incidents” as of early Sunday morning, describing the severe storms as “a historical weather event.”
The vehicle the woman and the boy were in was washed into a creek and later wedged against a drainage pipe, police told CNN affiliate KOCO. The vehicle was believed to be carrying a family of three, police said. A third person was able to escape and was taken to the hospital in serious condition.
The woman and child were missing when rescuers reached the vehicle. They were found after an extensive search by Moore police and neighboring agencies.
A father and son in a separate vehicle that was swept away around the same time also managed to escape, police told KOCO. Their vehicle briefly ended up on top of the family of three’s vehicle, according to KOCO.
Earlier Saturday night, Moore police said they were responding to more than a dozen calls for help from residents whose vehicles were trapped in high water.
Water levels were “significantly higher than we’ve seen in recent years,” police told KOCO. Flooding in the area has receded, but police warned of large debris remaining on roads.
The flooding is part of severe weather that struck multiple states in the South late Saturday and into Sunday. Tornado and flood warnings were issued for several counties in Texas and Oklahoma overnight.
There were 16 tornado reports as of early Sunday morning, according to the Storm Prediction Center.
Sunday could pose a potentially greater tornado threat as the storms move east. More than 20 million people from Illinois to Louisiana, including those in St. Louis, Memphis, Tennessee, Little Rock, Arkansas, and Shreveport, Louisiana, could experience severe storms.
The deadly flood threat will continue into Easter Sunday. Millions of people are under flood watches through Sunday evening across parts of six states, from Texas to Arkansas and up to Illinois.
The weekend rain is expected to total 2 to 3 inches across affected areas, with more than 5 inches possible in isolated locations.
The area under flood threat is west of the hardest-hit regions along the Mississippi River from two weeks ago. However, the ground remains waterlogged in many of these places from earlier storms this month, so it won’t take much to cause flooding.
CNN Meteorologist Allison Chinchar contributed to this report.
