At least four dead as Tropical Depression Bill soaks central U.S.
By Jon Herskovitz
(Reuters) - At least four people have been killed by Tropical Depression Bill, which on Friday settled over Arkansas and Missouri, and led to flash flood watches in five states.
Bill, the second named tropical storm of the 2015 Atlantic hurricane season, is expected to lose strength as it moves into the Ohio Valley, bringing about 2 to 4 inches (5 to 10 cms) of rain in places such southern Illinois and Indiana as well as western Kentucky, the U.S. National Weather Service said.
In Oklahoma, where two people were killed in weather-related incidents, the storm caused rivers already swollen by heavy rains at the end of May to spill their banks.
The most recent victim was an 80-year-old woman found in a pickup truck that had been submerged about 35 miles southeast of Oklahoma City, police said.
In Missouri, where one person was killed in flood waters, Governor Jay Nixon has issued a state of emergency.
Bill, which came ashore in Texas on Tuesday as a tropical storm, lashed an area from Houston to Dallas with heavy rain. A woman was killed in central Texas when she lost control of her car while driving through the storm.
(Reporting by Jon Herskovitz in Austin, Texas and Heide Brandes in Oklahoma City)
