Search for Rafter Continues as Death Toll Rises in Texas Flooding

DALLAS, July 7 -- The sky was mercifully clear over much of Texas on Saturday after three weeks of drenching rain, as search teams combed the swollen Trinity River for a missing rafter.

The death toll from storms that have battered Texas since last month climbed to 15 with the recovery of two other flood victims elsewhere in the state.

The 26-year-old missing man was on a rubber raft that capsized Friday on the Trinity.

A companion had to swim about 300 yards against the swift current to safety, but Fort Worth Fire Department spokesman Kent Worley said that the man could not find his friend after their raft flipped. Neither wore a life jacket.

Elsewhere across the region, rivers in Oklahoma and Kansas have been receding, revealing millions of dollars in damage to thousands of homes and businesses, besides the roughly 1,000 damaged in Texas. Authorities found the body of a man believed to be the flood's first fatality in Kansas.

In hard-hit Coffeyville, Kan., high levels of fecal coliform bacteria in the floodwater led authorities to restrict access to the east side of the city to residents who had been allowed back into their homes earlier in the week. Emergency workers have reported experiencing rashes and diarrhea.

On Saturday, President Bush issued a federal-disaster declaration for Oklahoma, freeing federal funds to aid two counties ravaged by the flooding.

Along the Oklahoma-Texas line, Lake Texoma reached the top of a 640-foot-high concrete spillway Saturday, with waves lapping over the top, the Army Corps of Engineers said. The corps has been pumping an estimated 27,000 cubic feet of water per second into the Red River to help control the lake's level.

In Texas, forecasters said the severe storms appeared to be tapering. Although more storms have been forecast for the coming week in north Texas and along the coast, the heavier rainfall is predicted to be more localized.

"We are not going to see the widespread flooding we saw in the past few weeks," said Bill Bunting, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service. "But I can't say completely we are out of the woods."