FINDLAY, Ohio (AP) – Heather Carroccio stuffed a few essentials into a backpack and grabbed her 4-year-old son’s Elmo book and a Slinky after firefighters motored up to her porch in a boat.

She and her husband had wanted to ride out the floodwaters enveloping the neighborhood even after waking up Wednesday and finding their cars nearly submerged. But “the kind rescuers persuaded us,” she said.

There was a lot of that going on Wednesday – families stunned by the worst flooding in this northern Ohio town since 1913, but hesitant to evacuate.

“A lot of people won’t leave,” said Lt. Brian Herbert, a firefighter from Fostoria. “Some we don’t give a choice.”

Authorities said at least 500 people were evacuated, but that figure was probably low because many left on their own or were helped by residents using their own boats.

Three men in a fishing boat ferried a mother and her 2-week-old daughter along with the family dogs.

“That was the catch of the day,” said Angel Sanchez, the baby’s neighbor.

The little girl didn’t make a peep, said Gene Lynn, one of the volunteer rescuers, but “the dogs were a little nervous,” he said.

Some residents sat on their porches watching the canoes and kayaks paddle past. One man standing on his roof dangled a fishing line in the murky brown water below.

Three days of heavy rain left the region waterlogged. Schools were closed and some neighborhoods and farms were cut off to outside traffic because so many roads and streets were under water.

No one was reported injured or killed in Ohio, but at least 22 people have died in two U.S. storm systems – one that has spanned the Upper Midwest and another from remnants of Tropical Storm Erin in Texas, Oklahoma and Missouri.

Flooding also continued in northern Iowa as thunderstorms dumped more heavy rain across the region Wednesday.

Three subdivisions along the Des Moines River near Fort Dodge were evacuated, and crews used rocks and sandbags to shore up a levee that had begun to give way, officials said.

Thousands of homes were damaged in Wisconsin and Minnesota as the storm swept through. A preliminary survey by the American Red Cross in Minnesota identified about 4,200 affected homes, including 256 complete losses, 338 with major damage and 475 that are still inaccessible, said Kris Eide, the state’s director of homeland security and emergency management.

Preliminary damage reports in Wisconsin indicate 30 homes and 25 businesses were destroyed. Another 731 homes and 32 businesses were damaged.

In Oklahoma, which recorded a gust of 82 mph and 11 inches of rain, some 300 homes and businesses were damaged in the Kingfisher area and in Caddo County in southwestern Oklahoma, officials said. According to the Oklahoma Climatological Survey, 2007 is so far the fourth-wettest on record in the state, with an average rainfall total of 31.96 inches, 8.42 inches above normal.

Among the hardest hit towns in Ohio was Findlay, a city of about 40,000 people where flooding from the Blanchard River has always been a worry. But nobody could remember anything like this – about five feet of water swamped stores downtown.

Floodwaters surrounded a sign boasting of one of Findlay’s favorite sons: early 20th-century composer Tell Taylor. His biggest hit: “Down By the Old Mill Stream.”

The river was about 7 feet above flood stage Wednesday and could rise another half-foot or more from water draining out of creeks and farm fields, according to the National Weather Service. Rising water forced authorities to move about 130 inmates at the county jail in Findlay to a regional prison.

About 150 evacuees filled an emergency shelter Wednesday. Inside, children played a bean bag toss game and parents sifted through a pile of donated clothes.

Steps away, Gov. Ted Strickland whispered words of comfort to Wendy Pocock and her husband. Their apartment has about a foot of water inside and everything is likely lost.

“You can’t replace pictures of Grandma,” Pocock said.

Strickland declared states of emergency in nine counties in northwest and north-central Ohio. State aid will be available, he said.

The rain had subsided by mid-afternoon, but it was expected to be followed by a heat wave. The weather service issued a heat advisory through midnight Friday for much of northwest Ohio as well as southern and central regions of the state, with temperatures expected in the upper 90s and heat index values up to 104.

AP-ES-08-22-07 1902EDT