Iowa braces for flooding, more rain on the way
Volunteers filled sandbags and homeowners began moving things out of their basements on Saturday, and one small town evacuated about 100 homes in preparation for flooding along the Cedar River in Iowa.
The river is expected to crest Tuesday in Cedar Rapids, Iowa’s second largest city with a population of about 130,000. But with more rain expected Saturday night, officials there warned people to evacuate downtown areas of the city near the river by 8 p.m. today.
“We have emergency personnel that can help you if needed,” Cedar Rapids Mayor Ron Corbett said Saturday. “They’ll risk their lives for you. But we don’t want them to risk their lives.”
At the Cedar Valley Montessori School in downtown Cedar Rapids on Friday, about 100 volunteers from area high schools helped move all the school equipment above the ground floor.
Stacy Cataldo, head of the school, told television station KCRG that many remember how flooding damaged the school in 2008 and don’t want that to happen again.
“We’re applying those lessons as we move forward,” she said.
Just upriver in the small town of Palo, about 100 homes in low-lying areas were evacuated Saturday.
City Clerk Trisca Dix said that the mandatory evacuation in the town of about 1,000 took place Saturday afternoon before the river was expected to crest tonight at 24.5 feet.
Mayor Tom Yock told the Des Moines Register that volunteers and work crews scrambled Saturday to protect as much as possible of the town, which was devastated by the record flooding in 2008.
Many people moved their belongings to the upper levels of their homes and built sandbag barriers before evacuating, he said.
“We’re just trying to be more proactive than we were in ’08, trying to save as many homes as we can,” Yock said.
In Cedar Falls, about 55 miles upriver from Cedar Rapids, Lynn Hoth was among a group of volunteers filling sandbags and building flood barriers.
“Last time, we were an island for three days and we couldn’t get in or out,” Hoth said, referring to the 2008 flood, which caused billions of dollars in damage. This time around, “we’ve had notice, so that’s good, and people help each other.”
Parts of southern Minnesota are under a flood warning until Monday morning. In central Wisconsin, a flood warning was issued for the Yellow River at Babcock until this morning, but the river wasn’t causing any major problems, according to National Weather Service meteorologist Rick Mamrosh in Green Bay, Wisconsin.
In southwestern Wisconsin, the Kickapoo River appeared to have crested and the Black River was on its way down. But the Yellow River is still rising and may reach major flood stage this evening, said Clint Aegerter, a meteorologist at the weather service’s office in La Crosse, Wisconsin. The Mississippi River at La Crosse may crest at minor flood stage around 4 p.m. Monday, he said.
Still, the weather service said storms Saturday night into today would bring more rain to the area.
A half-inch to 1 inch of rain is possible in southwestern Wisconsin, southeastern Minnesota and northeastern Iowa late Saturday through today, meteorologists said.