The Nation - News from Sept. 1, 1986

A woman was swept out of her truck and drowned and 40 to 50 families fled their homes after a crack developed in a dam in heavy rain that swept across West Texas. The woman’s body was found hours after her husband and child were rescued from a tree branch where they clung when their truck got stranded on a bridge, police Lt. Jerry Edwards said. “Unofficially, we’ve had over five inches of rain in about four hours,� Edwards added. The 35- to 40-foot-high Comanche Trail Lake dam near Big Spring cracked and families living in low-lying areas voluntarily evacuated, he said, adding that most returned after the water level behind the dam began dropping and inspectors examined it.