USA TODAY International Edition
Midwest floods wash out bridges, roads
Rivers rise to record levels with runoff from winter snows, “bomb cyclone”
Roads and bridges were washed out, freshwater systems were swamped, and rescue operations were in full swing Monday as rivers across a large swath of the Midwest rose to record levels after days of heavy rains.
“This is really the most devastating flooding we’ve probably ever had in our state’s history,” Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts told CNN. “So many people are being displaced; towns are being isolated.”
The culprit is a combination of runoff into rivers from the “bomb cyclone” storm that roared across the country last week and spring snowmelt after a winter of heavy snow.
Thousands of people in Nebraska, Iowa, Wisconsin and Missouri have been driven from their homes by the fast-rising waters. At least three deaths have been blamed on the flooding, and two Nebraska men have been missing for days. Some areas braced for more rain Tuesday.
In Hornuck, Iowa, Dale Ronfeldt, 66, stood in his backyard overlooking a drowned garage and a nearly flooded swimming pool. “We have a scare every year,” he said. “We have cried wolf so many times that you don’t know if it’s really going to happen this time or not. This time, it was real.”
As of late Monday, about 8 million people in 14 states live where a flood warning is in effect, the National Weather Service said. About 200 miles of levees along the Missouri River have been either breached or overtopped, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers reported.
Residents in southwestern Iowa were forced out of their homes Sunday and Monday as a torrent of Missouri River water flowed over and through levees, some of the 2,000 Iowans who have fled their homes since the heavy rains came.
At a news conference in Sioux City, Gov. Kim Reynolds said the flooding “is worse than even what we saw in 2011, and we’re just getting started.”