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A Mississippi woman is dead after flash flooding submerged and swept away her SUV while she was still inside, even as bystanders tried to rescue her.

The incident happened around 3 p.m. Monday in the parking lot of the Eastbrook Commons shopping center in Petal.

Luisa Ortega is an employee at Los Charros Mexican Grill in the shopping center. She says the staff was still inside the restaurant when the rain started to pick up.

"Just flooding in the dining area, flooding in the kitchen," she said. "It was kind of everywhere."

Moments later, Ortega says they noticed a white SUV caught up in fast-moving water in the middle of the parking lot as the driver struggled to get out.

"You could tell that she was... trying to get out or move around," she said. "But the body of water was moving from a lot of different areas."


Video shows bystanders wading through knee-high water to try to rescue the driver, but witnesses say the SUV flipped before she was able to escape.

"It kind of looked like a boat for a little bit, and then, it just went down," Ortega said.

Petal Fire Chief Marion Sims says witnesses told first responders that the SUV made its way to the other side of the parking lot through a culvert.

Dive teams were brought in to aid in the search and later found the woman's body on the other side of Highway 42. Her SUV was pulled out of the water nearby roughly two hours later.

"I really wish there was more we could have done," Ortega said. "You feel very helpless. It's really sad."

Ortega says this was a hard scene to watch.

"It's had a past of flooding," she said. "They just didn't know it would be so much water to pull a whole vehicle in."

City leaders say the water reached nearly 12 feet before it started to recede, and more rain is expected later this week.

First responders are urging drivers to keep themselves and others safe by staying off the road if another flood happens.

"As they always say, if you can't see the roadway, don't drive through it. You never know if that road has actually been washed out or not," Sims said. "It doesn't take very many inches to sweep a vehicle off the road."

Forrest County Coroner Lisa Klem has not identified the woman publicly but has notified next of kin.