Congressional Record

Our representative, Jo Ann Emerson, place the following in the Congressional Record recognizing the efforts of nine local people on the morning of December 14, 2005.

• Mrs. EMERSON. Mr. Speaker, today I rise to honor the heroism of nine individuals in Missouri's Eighth Congressional District whose quick thinking and brave actions saved the lives of a family of five.

• In the early morning hours of December 14th, a billion-gallon flood from the Taum Sauk Reservoir swept through the Johnson Shut Ins State Park. Park Ranger Jerry Toops, his wife and their three children, ages 5, 3, and seven months, were awakened to a harrowing scene as the freezing cold floodwaters crashed through their home and carried them all away.

• Their rescuers were immediately set into motion. Mr. Josh McCarty, Mr. Gary Maize, Mr. Tyler Wright, Mr. Robbie Jordan, Mr. Ryan Wadlow and Fire Chief Ben Meredith of the Lesterville Fire Department, Reynolds County Sheriff's Deputy Brian Fox knew the Toops family had been in the path of the flood and raced to the scene. Also on the scene was a good Samaritan--Mr. Greg Coleman--a truck driver who had been stranded on the roof of his semi truck and heard Jerry Toops calling for help from a tree. He called the local emergency dispatcher and, as soon as the icy water receded, met the fire department and set out to find the family. Mr. Butch Walker, a neighbor, used his truck to clear a path through the flood debris for the emergency responders. They found the five members of the Toops family alive, but in urgent need of medical care.

• On the ensuing ambulance rides, the lives of the three children hung in the balance. Their parents, the county, the State and the Nation all prayed that they would survive. They did. But a moment later, a minute's delay, or a notch less of urgency and the outcome could have been grim for the Toops family, laying in their nightclothes on the cold, wet ground.

If not for these nine men with their training and determination, acting fast, in the dark, frozen moments after the flood, one, some, or all of these five lives would have been lost. It is this character, selflessness, and reliability for neighbors in need that make Southern Missouri a wonderful place to live. They are heroes of whom we are proud, though they would say they are just doing their jobs or doing what anyone would do in their position. Yet they responded without hesitation, and we owe them a great debt of gratitude. I commend them today in the U.S. House of Representatives and thank God for their great deeds.