Search for man after heavy rains in Butler County ends for night

A father and son were swept away in Butler County floodwaters on Friday evening.

The son walked out of a bean field nine hours later, but his father remained missing Saturday. Searchers using boats, a helicopter and wading boots were trying to find him along Polecat Creek south of Rose Hill, Butler County Sheriff Kelly Herzet said. The search was suspended Saturday night and will resume at 9 a.m. on Sunday.

Herzet said the missing man is Richard Lowery, 62, of Wichita. Search crews were using wet suits, an inflatable boat and a helicopter to try to find him.

“About 7 this morning, some of the (rescue) guys were sitting here (at the intersection) and saw a guy walk out of a bean field,” Herzet said Saturday. “It was the son; they sent him to a Wichita hospital. He had some hypothermia and was a little disoriented.”

The man and his son were riding in a truck near a creek at Southwest 210th Road and Butler Road, south of Rose Hill, before 10 p.m. on Friday, a Butler County emergency dispatcher said.

“We’re hoping for the best on the gentleman we haven’t found yet; I hope he made it to a tree,” Herzet said. “There were some reports about people seeing him wash downstream. He could be a long way down there.

“With the amount of rain we had, it started covering the road here, and people started driving through it, which they should never, ever do,” Herzet said.

Crews from the Butler County Sheriff’s Office, from Augusta and from the Rose Hill Fire Department spent part of Friday night searching, then pulled back to let the flooded creek subside a few feet. By late morning on Saturday, the water had gone down many feet, but it and debris were still a danger to searchers or anyone else trying to wade into it.

One of the searchers rode alongside the helicopter pilot to peer down into the thick vegetation surrounding both sides of the creek.

At midmorning, the pilot landed and said they’d seen nothing and wanted to let the creek subside more before trying again.

By 4 p.m. Saturday, searchers had found articles of the man’s clothing and other items from his truck. Searchers were using K-9 dogs to search both banks of Polecat Creek, Herzet said.

Elsewhere, rescuers used boats to take some Mulvane residents from their homes Friday night as water rose 5 feet or more, Sedgwick County dispatchers said.

Several people were rescued from vehicles stranded on flooded streets on Friday, a Sedgwick County emergency dispatch supervisor said, though no injuries were reported.

National Weather Service radar indicated between 5 and 7 inches of rain fell in southern Sedgwick County and western Butler County stretching from I-35 to Rose Hill and from Derby south to Mulvane.

The American Red Cross has opened a service center in Mulvane to help those affected by the flooding Friday. The center is at City Hall, 211 N. Second St. in Mulvane. It will be open on Monday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. The Red Cross help line is 844-334-7569.

This story was originally published August 20, 2016 at 8:54 AM with the headline "Search for man after heavy rains in Butler County ends for night."