Rescuers use dump trucks to save Texans on rooftops

(CNN) -- Authorities in Orange County, Texas, were using dump trucks to rescue residents trapped on their roofs by flooding resulting from Hurricane Ike, a county judge said Saturday.

Up to 200 people, including an 8-week-old infant and an 80-year-old woman, have been rescued, emergency officials said.

"One family has been there since 3 this morning," county Judge Carl Thibodeaux said. "We've got wind devastation, water devastation."

Authorities were trying to help those most in need first, he said.

"We're getting to them. It's going to be slow, but we're making all attempts to get to them," he said. Watch the storm surge in nearby Beaumont »

It was not immediately clear how many people were trapped or how high the water had risen in the area.

Orange County lies on the Texas-Louisiana state line near the Sabine River. The county seat is the city of Orange, about 25 miles east of Beaumont.

"We did take a lot of water," said a dispatcher at the Orange Police Department who did not want to give her name.

But flooding apparently was not widespread in Orange.

"We're good," she said. "Wet and tired, but good."

An Orange County sheriff's official said rescuers were using anything high enough above the floodwater to access homes.

Rescuers are dealing with downed power lines, and officials are upset that more residents didn't leave before the storm, the sheriff's official said.

CNN's Rusty Dornin contributed to this report.

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