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Columbus man saves couple stranded by severe flooding |
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Wednesday, 02 April 2008 |
Last week Columbus City resident Doug Paulson helped rescue two Harrisburg, Illinois residents from homes that had been stranded by flood waters.
Paulson was in Illinois volunteering with the American Red Cross as part of the disaster response to severe flooding in southern Illinois.
While conducting damage assessment reports in rural Harrisburg, Paulson and his team saw some isolated houses about a mile-and-a-half across a flooded corn field.
“When I saw the houses I just had a feeling that I had to go and check on them,” Paulson said.
“No one else in my group wanted to go but I said to myself ‘I’m going to go.’ When I looked back everyone was following me.”
When Paulson and his four-person team arrived at the residence a woman came running out of the house.
“She sure was glad to see us,” Paulson explained.
The home’s two residents were running low on medicine and food. Sheriff’s Deputies had to use four-wheel drive vehicles to get the couple to safety.
“Had we not found them when we did and it kept on raining, like it has down there, it would have been very difficult to get these people to safety,” Paulson said.
The formerly stranded couple is now staying with relatives in Harrisburg.
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