Storms sock Texas with up to 10 inches of rain; boy, 9, drowns when pickup truck is caught

<br>DALLAS (AP) _ A violent storm system pounded a wide area of Texas, spawning at least one tornado, blocking roads and drowning a 9-year-old boy who was swept away by surging currents at a rural crossroads.

Monday, December 17th 2001, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

DALLAS (AP) _ A violent storm system pounded a wide area of Texas, spawning at least one tornado, blocking roads and drowning a 9-year-old boy who was swept away by surging currents at a rural crossroads.

National Weather Service meteorologist Jim Maxwell said parts of North Texas got as much as 10 inches of rain Sunday.

``That's well above the normal amounts for the entire month,'' Maxwell said.

Near Crawford, torrents flooding a rural crossing early Sunday swept Levi Baur, 9, into the Middle Bosque River.

The boy and his father, Matthew Baur, had just left home on a hunting trip when their pickup truck stalled in the flooded crossing, police spokesman Gary Patterson said.

The father tried to pull his son through the water to safety, but lost his grip when debris struck him in the head, dazing him, Patterson said. The boy's body was found four hours later.

Sunday evening, a tornado spawned by the same cold front swirled through a subdivision and damaged a grocery store in Point Blank, about 70 miles north of Houston.

Kim Letien, a dispatcher with the San Jacinto County Sheriff's Department, said one person received minor injuries.

A woman and her children were rescued from a flooded county road near Terrell, west of Dallas, and a 22-year-old man was pulled from surging water in nearby Hunt County.