Sunday, January 24, 1999

Flood waters yield bodies

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2 moms, 2 babies, 2 tragedies

BY SAUNDRA AMRHEIN and PHILLIP PINA
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Twila Page's car is pulled out of a flooded field. (Yoni pozner photo) | ZOOM |

        BROWNSVILLE, Ind. — The bodies of a mother and her 23-month-old daughter were found Saturday, a mile from the car in which she may have unwittingly driven straight into the raging waters of the East Fork of the Whitewater River.

        Twila Page, 28, and her daughter, Cayla Page, were found by state rescue boats after a two-day search by Indiana and local police.

        The woman had been miss ing since about 5 a.m. Friday, when she didn't show up for work.

        During heavy rainstorms, neighbors knew to stay away from Clifton Road in Union County, about 10 miles south of Richmond. But Ms. Page had only lived in her rented home on Jobe Road for about six months and may not have known to stay away from the bridge that connected Clifton Road to Brownsville Road. She recently moved from Richmond.

        “This is one of those places where the river comes out of its banks,” said Robert Dishmond, who lived down the road from Ms. Page and several hundred feet from the river.

        “It's always had that problem. You have to go around,” he said.

        Mr. Dishmond, a resident on Clifton Road for about 20 years, said he awoke at 4 a.m. Friday to thick fog and the sound of the river roaring down the hill from his house.

        That was the sign to take another route into town.

        The East Fork had swollen its banks after about 4 inches of rain fell on parts of Indiana since Thursday afternoon. On Saturday, water was still standing on about 10 acres of cornfields next to the river.

        The base of the bridge lay littered with broken asphalt, stones and weeds where the river had covered it and carried Ms. Page's car into its raging current. Residents of Union County who say they didn't even know Ms. Page sat in their idle cars on the bridge Saturday, looking out over the muddy fields where workers towed her car back to Clifton Road.

        Police officials from the Union County sheriff's office, the Indiana State Police and the Indiana Department of Natural Resources searched for Ms. Page and her daughter until finding them at 1 p.m. Saturday, said Sgt. Jim Meyers of the Indiana State Police in Connersville.

        Officers from the state Conservation Department, in boats, found the pair near each other. The car had been found Friday, 100 yards downstream from the bridge.

        “The car was carried about 100 yards and probably filled with water and then sank,” Indiana Conservation Officer Bill Beville said. “The window was down on the car, and the car seat was unstrapped — so we're surmising that the mother tried to escape from the car.”

        In Ohio, meanwhile, the body of a woman missing after her car drove into a flooded southeast Ohio creek was found Saturday afternoon.

        Firefighters from the nearby town of Baltimore found the body of Tami Kellenbarger, 23, of West Rushville, about 2:30 p.m, said Fairfield County Sheriff Gary DeMastry.

        She was found about two miles from where police think her car originally went into the flooded creek early Friday.

        The body of Ms. Kellenbarger's 3-year-old daughter, Courtney, was found still strapped in a toddler seat Friday morning, near this town about 30 miles southeast of Columbus.

        Mr. DeMastry said Ms. Kellenbarger was driving home before 2 a.m. Friday when the accident happened.

        Deputies went to the site because a pickup truck crashed about the same time where a two-lane road had washed away at the bottom of a hill. They discovered the car after waters receded.

        The weather should help bring relief to rain-swollen rivers. After several days of rainy weather, there are no storms in the forecast for the next few days. The National Weather Service canceled the river flood warning for the Whitewater River on Saturday afternoon as the water began to recede.

        While the Great Miami River was nearly 1¹/₂ feet above the 16-foot flood stage Saturday at Miamitown, police and fire officials said there had been no major problems reported. The river was expected to continue rising until early this morning.

        The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Cincinnati.com Weather Page

       

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