12 Inches Of Rain Hit Carolinas -- Woman Missing After Her Car Is Swept Away

GREENVILLE, S.C. - Flooding caused by as much as 15 inches of rain forced hundreds of people from their homes in the Carolinas and drowned six people, including a fireman trying to make a rescue and an 8-year-old skateboarder.

Another person was missing, and two traffic deaths also were blamed on the wet weather, produced by the dregs of Tropical Storm Jerry.

Northwestern South Carolina was hardest hit by the rain, with 15 inches over the weekend at the Greenville-Spartanburg airport, the National Weather Service said.

In western North Carolina, 11 inches of rain fell in 36 hours.

Hundreds of people had to flee their homes in Charlotte, Chapel Hill and Robbins, N.C. Among them were 63 residents of a Charlotte nursing home and 60 people from a long-term-care center at Kannapolis.

And as many as 15,000 Duke Power customers lost electricity during the weekend in North Carolina.

At Gaffney, S.C., about 60 miles northeast of Greenville, 8-year-old Bryant Eagle was skateboarding on a sidewalk when he fell into a flooded drainage ditch and was sucked into a storm pipe. His mother, Donna Eagle, said she tried to pull him out.

The body of Christoffer Michael Douty, 18, was found yesterday in a flooded Greenville County creek. He drowned after jumping in to save a teenage girl. She survived.

In nearby Greer, S.C., 20-year-old Victoria Marie Cordle was missing, swept away when her car plunged into a swollen creek. Three

passengers survived.

In North Carolina, firefighter Greg Hinson drowned yesterday trying to rescue a stranded motorist in Alamance County, northwest of Raleigh. The motorist and another rescue worker swam to a tree.

Also in Alamance County, three bodies were found inside a car that was washed off a highway and into a creek, said state Highway Patrol Trooper Gene Johnson.