Girl Survives 7 Hours In Flooded River -- 11 Dead, 51 Missing In Storms

SHADYSIDE, Ohio - A 9-year-old girl said she was swept down a creek into the Ohio River during a flash flood, stayed alive for seven hours hanging onto logs and ``just drifted'' until she reached shore yesterday morning.

Amber Colvin was in her family's home in Shadyside playing a card game with a neighbor when the storm hit Thursday night. The house started to fill with water.

Amber said her 12-year-old friend, Kerrie Trigg, wanted to get in the bathtub.

``We got in the bathtub, and the water was over our heads and then the house collapsed,'' Amber said from her Bellaire City Hospital room.

She doesn't know why they got in the tub but remembers Kerrie being hit on the head, knocking her out. Kerrie was still missing on yesterday.

``I tried to save her,'' Amber said. ``I almost drowned. I was swept out of the house.''

Amber was swept down Wegee Creek and then into the nearby Ohio River. Although she can only swim a little, she said she kept kicking her legs and hung onto two logs.

``I had them for a long time,'' she said. ``I just drifted.''

She said she was in the water from about 11 p.m. to 6 a.m. She tried to work her way to the shore to get to a factory where her father worked. She reached shore about seven miles from her home.

Her mother, Karen, said the last time she saw her daughter was at 9:30 p.m. She said she and her husband, Dennis, went into town to do some shopping but could not return and didn't know until 2 a.m. that their house had been swept away and that Amber was gone.

The Colvins stayed at the Jefferson Elementary School, where authorities set up a command center to coordinate rescue efforts. They eventually were told that Amber had been found alive.

Amber's parents met the emergency squad as it went through Shadyside.

``I can't begin to tell you how she looked. I don't know who was in shock more - me or her,'' Karen said as tears welled in her eyes.

``Her hands and feet had no color. She had her senses, but you just could tell she had been in the water. All she talked about was Kerrie. We prayed all night.''

Amber suffered no broken bones. She was listed in fair condition in the hospital, suffering from scrapes and other minor injuries.

Kerrie's grandmother, Shirley Trigg, was being counseled at the school.

``The doctors say you have to have hope, something about miracles. Miracles do happen, but this is a nightmare,'' Trigg said.

Thursday night's thunderstorms caused flash flooding across a wide area of central and eastern Ohio, northern West Virginia and western Pennsylvania. The floods closed roads, damaged homes and forced hundreds of people to evacuate homes. But no place was hit with anything approaching the ferocity of the flooding in Shadyside.

About 5.5 inches of rain fell between 7:30 p.m. and 11 p.m., turning two Ohio River tributaries outside the village of 4,300 people into torrents. There have been 11 confirmed deaths in the flooding, and 51 other people remain missing.