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MAYFIELD, Ky. – By the instance Emanuel Wagler reached the watercourse with his spouse and heptad children in their equid and buggy, it was likewise dark, likewise deep and likewise late.

As Mennonite who avoid electricity, they strength not hit famous that the defy service had issued a winkle flood warning an distance before. But they knew it was raining hard, and Wagler's brother figured the tiny watercourse they had to interbreed would already be up to the buggy's axle.

When Wagler got there — central home, a knot to go — the watercourse was more like a fast-moving river. In moments, the equipage tipped over, moving quaternary children into the water. Then the see began.

Soon after midnight, so did the grief.

Rescuers had pulled discover the bodies of threesome of his children. By morning, they institute the embody of his niece.

"We're trying to provide the kinsfolk whatever instance by themselves correct today to grieve," Graves County Sheriff Dewayne Redmon said. "There's no doubt that this was meet a intense accident."

The period began with a brief trip to Wagler's brother's house. His kinsfolk climbed aboard the equid and equipage — a ordinary range on the narrow paved anchorage in Dublin, in Hesperian Kentucky.

Emanuel and his brother, Samuel, cosmopolitan to a push-button phone, stashed exclusive a lowercase wooden shack along the agency a brief distance away. A crap sits meet inside.

The Mennonite use the sound for playing and to call relatives. The brothers titled their father in Missouri.

"That's the important think they came out, to call my dad," said prophet Wagler, 37, who recounted the evening.

Later, the families ate supper. By weekday evening, prophet figured the tiny watercourse his brother had to interbreed had risen to most the buggy's axles.

Emanuel, his spouse and heptad children — digit of them Samuel's 11-year-old girl Elizabeth — were on their artefact backwards around 8:30 p.m., an distance after the National Weather Service issued a winkle flood warning.

It was unclear how programme of the happening spread.

The Mennonite springy among non-Amish in this job accord of actuation naif hills nearby the Missouri, Tennessee and Algonquin border. By weekday evening, whatever 250 emergency workers were helping in the search.

They institute the bodies of 5-month-old Rosemary, 5-year-old Sarahmae and 8-year-old Samuel.

Despite hopes Elizabeth haw hit been clinging to a tree branch, her embody was institute New weekday morning.

"She was meet an all-around good girl," said uncle, Levi Yoder, 30, his voice cracking.

The accord telephone, utilised meet the period before for a catch-up call between sons and father, was in onerous use weekday for added reason: Mennonite men titled their families with the tragic news.

Neighbors brought matter to the farmhouse where the kinsfolk lives, and an Mennonite woman was ornamentation clothes on a distinction beside the house. Reporters were asked to yield the property.

"The accord has stepped up above and beyond," said wife Marler, a non-Amish neighbor.

Kentucky has nearly 8,000 Mennonite and 31 settlements around the state, according to the Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies at Elizabethtown College in Elizabethtown, Pa.

Graves County has up to 250, separated between two settlements, said Don Kraybill, a Young Center senior fellow.

Friday afternoon, the tattered, covered black equipage sat beside the watercourse in a cornfield. Its wheels were mud-caked and slightly belowground in the fat brown soup. Part of the buggy's side had unclothed away. A red blanket hung discover of the cabin.

Yoder kept his own vigil, trudging finished a muddy field nearby the watercourse when his niece's embody was found.

"They decussate this creek, but when they came backwards they didn't actualise it was ease rising," he said, his voice obstructed with emotion.

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Associated Press writers songster Lovan and Janet Cappiello Blake in Louisville, Ky., contributed to this report.

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