Iowa residents evacuate during historic flood
CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa – The Cedar River poured over its banks Thursday, forcing the evacuation of more than 3,000 homes, causing a railroad bridge to collapse and leaving cars underwater on downtown streets.
Officials estimated that 100 blocks were underwater in Cedar Rapids, where several days of preparation could not hold back the rain-swollen river. Rescuers had to use boats to reach many stranded residents, and people could be seen dragging suitcases up closed highway exit ramps to escape the water.
“We’re just kind of at God’s mercy right now, so hopefully people that never prayed before this, it might be a good time to start,” Linn County Sheriff Don Zeller said. “We’re going to need a lot of prayers and people are going to need a lot of patience and understanding.”
Officials estimated that 3,200 homes were evacuated and some 8,000 residents displaced.
Days of heavy rain across the state have sent nine rivers across Iowa at or above historic flood levels. Residents were already steeling themselves for floods before storms late Wednesday and early Thursday brought up to 5 inches of rain across west central Iowa.
“We are seeing a historic hydrological event taking place with unprecedented river levels occurring,” said Brian Pierce, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Davenport. “We’re in uncharted territory – this is an event beyond what anybody could even imagine.”
Gov. Chet Culver has declared 55 of the state’s 99 counties as state disaster areas.
No deaths or serious injuries were reported in Iowa, but one man was killed in southern Minnesota after his car plunged from a washed-out road into floodwaters. Another person was rescued from a nearby vehicle in the town of Albert Lea.
In Des Moines, officials said they were urging residents to evacuate more than 200 homes north of downtown because of concerns that the Des Moines River would top a nearby levee. Some residents also were ordered to evacuate homes along rivers in Iowa City and Coralville.
In Cedar Rapids, a city of about 124,000, floodwaters downtown neared the top of stop signs and cars were nearly covered in water. It wasn’t clear just how high the river had risen because a flood gauge was swept away by the swirling water.
“It’s going door to door to make sure people don’t need to be rescued, because right now they can’t get out on their own,” said Dave Koch, a spokesman for the Cedar Rapids Fire Department. “It’s just too deep.”
Prisoners had to be moved from the Linn County jail, including some inmates who had already been transferred once because of flooding. The sheriff’s office also was underwater, Zeller said.
“We’ve had to move our operations out of the area and to our alternate emergency site,” Zeller said. “We are just trying to regroup. When you don’t have all of your equipment and you don’t have all your facilities to operate out of – we’re at a little bit of a disadvantage … but we’re carrying on as normal.”
In Austin, Minn., the Cedar River crested 7.4 feet above flood stage. The river went about 5 feet higher in a 2004 flood that caused major damage in the city.
Flooding this week also caused damage across southern Wisconsin, where thunderstorms continued Thursday.
Violent thunderstorms Thursday night rattled Michigan’s northern Lower Peninsula, where tornado watches and warnings were in effect.