Sandbagged Levee Protects Iowa City

(CEDAR FALLS, Iowa) — A sandbagged levee was preventing a swollen river from spilling over its banks and flooding a northeastern Iowa city, but officials on Wednesday asked for additional volunteers to help shore it up as more rain loomed.

The Cedar River had been expected to top the levee during the night, deluging downtown Cedar Falls, a city of 35,000 people some 130 miles northwest of Des Moines. But city spokeswoman Susan Staudt said early Wednesday that the sandbags appeared to be holding.

Flood stage at Cedar Falls is 88 feet, and by about 5 a.m. the river stood at 101.8 feet, down slightly from earlier in the night. The previous record was 99.2 feet in 1999. Thousands of volunteers who showed up Tuesday to help with the sandbagging effort "saved this city, but we are still at a critical point," Staudt said.

She said more volunteers were needed to help reinforce the sandbag wall, which rises several feet above the levee. Volunteers patrolling the sandbag wall during the night reinforced spots where water was seeping through, she said.

Thunderstorms arrived in western Iowa during the morning as a band of storms rippled across the northern Plains, and the National Weather Service issue a severe thunderstorm watch for northwest Iowa and parts of Minnesota and South Dakota. "If we get more rain (the river) can rise again," Staudt said. "The levee and the ground is saturated and we want to make sure it doesn't give way."

Rising rivers wiped out a railroad bridge elsewhere in Iowa on Tuesday, closed part of a Wisconsin freeway and forced residents along the Mississippi River to prepare for what could be the worst flooding in 15 years.

In Cedar Falls, Donita Krueger was among those helping fill sandbags Tuesday. "If this breaks, the whole downtown will be flooded," she said. "Everything goes on down here. It would be a big hit to the community."

White, yellow and orange sandbags lined downtown, which was evacuated Tuesday. Tarps and plastic were taped to windows and doors. Mary Dooley of the American Red Cross said more than 70 people stayed in a shelter overnight.

In nearby Waterloo, fast-moving water swept away a railroad bridge used to transport tractors from a John Deere factory to Cedar Rapids. It also led the city to shut its downtown and close five bridges.

To the south, municipal officials in Palo urged residents to evacuate as water was expected to rise as much as 2 feet higher than in 1993, when devastating flooding covered wide areas of Iowa and adjoining states.

Associated Press writers Amy Lorentzen in Cedar Falls, Iowa; Luke Meredith in Des Moines, Iowa; and Todd Richmond in Lake Delton, Wis.; and David N. Goodman in Detroit contributed to this report.