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FAIRFIELD TWP. — Three members of the Butler County Sheriff's Office Marine Patrol Unit rescued a wheelchair-bound woman and her dog Wednesday morning, March 19, after water submerged a portion of her home here.

Kim Van Lieu, 48, said she went to bed Tuesday night, March 18, in her home at 3740 Canal Road with the nearby Great Miami River barely reaching its banks. She awoke at 5:30 a.m. Wednesday to the sight of the swollen river already halfway up the wooden stairs at the front of the one-story home, which sits on 6-foot stilts about 12 feet from the river.

Van Lieu quickly called her son Josh, 25, who lives on higher ground next door.

"I just told him to get me out of here. I'm surrounded by water," she said.

Van Lieu said it was a relief when her rescuers arrived. Two members of the marine patrol donned cold water rescue suits and waded through 100 feet of water, some of it waist-deep, while a third man rode with Van Lieu in an inflatable orange rescue boat.

"I was getting worried," she said. "It was getting high."

While Van Lieu said the trip back to shore was uneventful for her, the same cannot be said for Pumpkin, her 2-year-old English Bulldog.

"She was scared," Van Lieu said. "She's deaf, so she kind of freaks out when things like this happen."

Around 10:15 a.m., Butler County Sheriff's Deputy Rob Reiff pointed to two partially submerged garbage cans as a sign of how fast the area flooded in the hour he was on the scene.

"It's risen a good foot or so since I've been here," Reiff said.