Skies clear as search goes on

DALLAS -- The sky was mercifully clear over much of Texas yesterday 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.

"We don't know if he's still trapped in that low-head dam or whether he went downstream," said Kent Worley, a Fort Worth fire department spokesman .

A companion had to swim about 300 yards against the swift current to safety, but Worley said that man never saw his friend after their raft flipped. Neither man was wearing 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, in addition to the 1,000 or so 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., authorities have revoked all privileges for residents who had been allowed back into their homes earlier in the week and again restricted access to the east side of the city of 16,000 people because of high levels of bacteria in the floodwater. Emergency workers have reported rashes and diarrhea.

Yesterday, 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 had reached the top of a 640-foot-high concrete spillway yesterday, with waves lapping over the top, the Army Corps of Engineers said.

The lake, with a normal level of 619 feet, is expected to crest about 6 inches higher than the spillway tomorrow.

There was only a 20 to 30 percent chance of storms in Oklahoma today, forecaster Erin Maxwell said early yesterday.

In South Texas, the body of a 6-year-old boy swept away by the swollen Brazos River was found Friday on a beach about 15 miles from where he was washed into the Gulf of Mexico, said Jeff Pynes, Freeport's police chief.

The Brazos was carrying everything from cars to refrigerators to trees, and the current was so strong it was pushing 20 miles out into the Gulf , officials said.

The river is "in really bad shape and very, very dangerous," Pynes said.