Floodwaters that tore through an Arkansas campground, killing at least 16 people, also washed away records of who was there, making the daunting search for dozens of missing in heavily wooded forest even more difficult as anguished families waited for word of their loved ones, AP reported. Crews returned to the craggy Ouachita Mountains on horseback and all-terrain vehicles at daybreak Saturday, hoping to find campers who survived after walls of water chased them from their campgrounds along the Caddo and Little Missouri rivers. Other searchers in canoes and kayaks explored river banks for bodies that may have become tangled in the brush. The search was expected to take several more days _ and perhaps even weeks. «It's like a nightmare that someone's wanting to wake up from, but you can't,» said Maj. Harvey Johnson, with the Salvation Army. «It's the deer caught in the headlights look.» Floodwaters rising as swiftly as 8 feet (2.4 meters) an hour poured through the remote valley with such force that it peeled asphalt from roads and bark off trees. Cabins dotting the river banks were severely damaged. Mobile homes lay on their sides. Some described the quick rise of the water as a tsunami in a valley. Authorities don't even know how many people are missing. -- SPA
