Middle school students from the Montana Wilderness School of the Bible, attending a Bible camp along the Rocky Mountain Front, are guided onto a Chinook helicopter Thursday, June 21, 2018. (Montana Army National Guard via AP)
Helicopters rescued people stranded as severe storms swept the Rockies and the Midwest, including 140 children and counsellors stuck in a mountain Bible camp for two days. Campers attending the Montana Wilderness School of the Bible near the small town of Augusta were lifted out Thursday after a washed-out road cut off the only exit, the AP reports.
Montana was just drying out from spring flooding caused by near-record snowfall over the winter when a storm unleashed rain over the past three days. Floodwaters running through two cabins and staff housing woke up the Montana campers Tuesday, counsellor Dustin Steele says.
Residents use a canoe to paddle through high water after heavy rains caused water to rise and flood whole neighbourhoods on Thursday, June 21, 2018, in McAllen, Texas. (Joel Martinez/The Monitor via AP)
They had enough food and supplies to stay until Friday but the decision was made to get them out.
The Montana Army National Guard flew in two Chinook helicopters and made two trips each with about 30 campers and their luggage, Steele says. The mother of one of the campers, Teresa Lane, had an adventure of her own when she and her 9-year-old daughter spotted a grizzly bear that had been swept away by a fast-running creek on her ranch near Augusta.
"I thought it was a dead cow originally—it was something big and black and floating," Lane says. "Then it flipped around, and it looked at me, and I said, 'Tiffany, it's a bear!'"
Vehicles drive through rising water along Hollywood Road in St. Joseph, Mich., Thursday, June 21, 2018, after strong storms dumped several inches of rain in Southwest Michigan. (Don Campbell/The Herald-Palladium via AP)
She and her daughter followed the bear for about a quarter-mile as it tried to get out. When it finally did, it limped and appeared agitated before running away.
"It was not a happy camper," she says.
In this photo provided by the Montana Army National Guard, middle school students attending a Bible camp at the Montana Wilderness School of the Bible along the Rocky Mountain Front are guided onto a Chinook helicopter Thursday, June 21, 2018. (Montana Army National Guard via AP)
=========================================
No comments