Gio Takahashi
06-13-2008, 09:41
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'Uncharted territory' as city floods
Hospitals in Cedar Rapids evacuated as river continues to rise
NBC News and news services
updated 8:37 a.m. ET, Fri., June. 13, 2008
http://msnbcmedia1.msn.com/j/msnbc/Components/Photo_StoryLevel/080612/080612-cedar-rapids-hup-2p.h2.jpg
CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa - Flooding rivers across Iowa forced the evacuation of residents and hospital patients Thursday, with at least 10,000 people in Cedar Rapids told to leave when the Cedar River burst its banks.
Several hospitals in the city of 120,000 were evacuating patients early Friday, NBC News reported. Flood waters entered Mercy Cedar Rapids Hospital earlier in the day, eventually forcing the closure of the emergency room. The basement of the facility was said to be taking on water as night fell.
Rescuers had to use boats to reach many stranded residents of Cedar Rapids, and people could be seen dragging suitcases up closed highway exit ramps to escape the water. It wasn't clear just how high the river had risen because a flood gauge was swept away by the swirling 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."
"We are seeing a historic hydrological event taking place with unprecedented river levels occurring," added 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."
Iowa Gov. Chet Culver said storm and water damage to infrastructure will be in the hundreds of millions of dollars, as dozens of bridges have been damaged or destroyed. Nine rivers were at or near record levels, he said.
Rain was expected to taper off Friday, but then another storm front was likely to move in by Sunday night.
"It hits everything. Colleges are shut down, stores, it's devastating," said Lisa Fox, vice president of the Iowa Association of Business and Industry.
"Cedar Rapids is completely shut down," she said of Iowa's second-largest city, where around 100 city blocks were flooded. "It's going to be a long-term recovery."
The surging river caused part of a railroad bridge and about 20 hopper cars loaded with rocks to collapse into the river. The cars had been positioned on the bridge in hopes of weighing it down against the rising water.
The evacuations in Cedar Rapids followed a round earlier Thursday when some residents of Iowa City and Cedar Bluffs were also told to head for higher ground.
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.
Cedar Rapids' power was out for most of downtown, complicating rescue efforts, city spokesman Dave Koch told NBC News.
The new evacuations follow a 150-foot breach in an earthen levee early Thursday.
Prisoners moved ? again
Joe Childers, an official at a U.S. Bank in downtown Cedar Rapids, was in jeans and tennis shoes as he worked to move documents and other items upstairs or out of the building.
"We're trying to keep water out of as many places as we can," he said. "It's pretty amazing. I don't think anyone really expected it this far."
Prisoners had to be moved from the Linn County jail, including some inmates who had been transferred from the Benton County jail in Vinton because of flooding. The sheriff's office also was under water, 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."
Several emergency shelters were opened, and the ci
ty had closed all but one of its bridges over the Cedar River.
5 inches overnight
The Cedar and other rivers across flood-ravaged Iowa continue to rise after more rain overnight and into Thursday.
Storms brought up to 5 inches of rain across west central Iowa early Thursday ? primarily in the Raccoon River basin.
The Raccoon River meets the Des Moines River in downtown Des Moines.
An army of sandbagging volunteers continued to wage a battle against the state's rising rivers. Gov. Chet Culver has declared 55 of the state's 99 counties as disaster areas. Nine rivers are at or above historic flood levels.
Meteorologist Rod Donavon of the National Weather Service said the water flowing into the Raccoon River "is a concern" as it makes its way toward Des Moines.
Hundreds of people in Cedar Rapids and small towns evacuated on Wednesday. A tornado in the western part of Iowa late Wednesday killed four Boy Scouts and injured dozens (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25107608/).
"This has been a remarkable onslaught of weather ? everything from flooding, unbelievable rain and of course tornadoes ? all descending at once," Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff told reporters near the scout camp.
Chertoff said government relief would be forthcoming but the department also needed to keep some resources in reserve with the onset of hurricane season.
Officials hoped sandbags would hold back floodwaters slowly moving south and eventually into the Mighty Mississippi.
In the town of Vinton Wednesday, inmates in black-and-white striped uniforms were rescued from a jail by boat as the raging Cedar River flooded the town and forced evacuations, there and in nearby Waterloo.
Officials in Wisconsin also monitored dams and high water in Indiana burst a levee Wednesday, flooding a vast stretch of farmland. In Minnesota and North Dakota, strong winds closed a highway.
Along the Mississippi River in Missouri and Illinois, the National Weather Service predicted the worst flooding in 15 years. Outlying areas could be inundated, but most of the towns are protected by levees and many low-lying property owners were bought out after massive flooding in 1993, officials said.
This year's spring deluge led some to compare it to the disaster of 1993 when the Mississippi River and its tributaries turned parts of the nation's midsection into a gigantic lake.
Corn prices hit a record high again Thursday and the short-term outlook did not look good.
"The only thing changing with this weather pattern is that we're going from wet and mild to wet and cool," said Mike Palmerino, forecaster with DTN Meteorlogix.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced it was closing locks and dams on 200 miles of the upper portion of the vital commercial waterway on Thursday, possibly through early July. The locks must be closed to remove and store electric motors that move lock gates and control valves, the corps said.
'Major flooding' likely on Mississippi
The National Weather Service predicted crests of 10 feet above flood stage and higher over the next two weeks. Most of the towns along the Mississippi are protected by levees, but outlying areas could be flooded.
"This is major flooding," weather service hydrologist Karl Sieczynski said of the Mississippi.
Meteorologist Bill Karins of NBC's WeatherPlus added: "We are in the middle of a historic flood event in the Upper Mississippi Valley. Most major Iowa rivers are cresting at all-time record levels and this water will soon raise the Mississippi River to its second highest levels in recorded history north of St. Louis.
"The Mississippi River predictions for Burlington, Iowa, call for the crest to be a one in 100-200 year flood, second only to the Great Flood of 1993, which was considered a 500-year flood event," he said.
"The story along the Mississippi River will be all the mid-sized and small towns without large levees," he added. "On the consumer side, thousands upon thousands of acres of farmland will be flooded for weeks with incredible crop losses."
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25020185/
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'Uncharted territory' as city floods
Hospitals in Cedar Rapids evacuated as river continues to rise
NBC News and news services
updated 8:37 a.m. ET, Fri., June. 13, 2008
http://msnbcmedia1.msn.com/j/msnbc/Components/Photo_StoryLevel/080612/080612-cedar-rapids-hup-2p.h2.jpg
CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa - Flooding rivers across Iowa forced the evacuation of residents and hospital patients Thursday, with at least 10,000 people in Cedar Rapids told to leave when the Cedar River burst its banks.
Several hospitals in the city of 120,000 were evacuating patients early Friday, NBC News reported. Flood waters entered Mercy Cedar Rapids Hospital earlier in the day, eventually forcing the closure of the emergency room. The basement of the facility was said to be taking on water as night fell.
Rescuers had to use boats to reach many stranded residents of Cedar Rapids, and people could be seen dragging suitcases up closed highway exit ramps to escape the water. It wasn't clear just how high the river had risen because a flood gauge was swept away by the swirling 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."
"We are seeing a historic hydrological event taking place with unprecedented river levels occurring," added 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."
Iowa Gov. Chet Culver said storm and water damage to infrastructure will be in the hundreds of millions of dollars, as dozens of bridges have been damaged or destroyed. Nine rivers were at or near record levels, he said.
Rain was expected to taper off Friday, but then another storm front was likely to move in by Sunday night.
"It hits everything. Colleges are shut down, stores, it's devastating," said Lisa Fox, vice president of the Iowa Association of Business and Industry.
"Cedar Rapids is completely shut down," she said of Iowa's second-largest city, where around 100 city blocks were flooded. "It's going to be a long-term recovery."
The surging river caused part of a railroad bridge and about 20 hopper cars loaded with rocks to collapse into the river. The cars had been positioned on the bridge in hopes of weighing it down against the rising water.
The evacuations in Cedar Rapids followed a round earlier Thursday when some residents of Iowa City and Cedar Bluffs were also told to head for higher ground.
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.
Cedar Rapids' power was out for most of downtown, complicating rescue efforts, city spokesman Dave Koch told NBC News.
The new evacuations follow a 150-foot breach in an earthen levee early Thursday.
Prisoners moved ? again
Joe Childers, an official at a U.S. Bank in downtown Cedar Rapids, was in jeans and tennis shoes as he worked to move documents and other items upstairs or out of the building.
"We're trying to keep water out of as many places as we can," he said. "It's pretty amazing. I don't think anyone really expected it this far."
Prisoners had to be moved from the Linn County jail, including some inmates who had been transferred from the Benton County jail in Vinton because of flooding. The sheriff's office also was under water, 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."
Several emergency shelters were opened, and the ci
ty had closed all but one of its bridges over the Cedar River.
5 inches overnight
The Cedar and other rivers across flood-ravaged Iowa continue to rise after more rain overnight and into Thursday.
Storms brought up to 5 inches of rain across west central Iowa early Thursday ? primarily in the Raccoon River basin.
The Raccoon River meets the Des Moines River in downtown Des Moines.
An army of sandbagging volunteers continued to wage a battle against the state's rising rivers. Gov. Chet Culver has declared 55 of the state's 99 counties as disaster areas. Nine rivers are at or above historic flood levels.
Meteorologist Rod Donavon of the National Weather Service said the water flowing into the Raccoon River "is a concern" as it makes its way toward Des Moines.
Hundreds of people in Cedar Rapids and small towns evacuated on Wednesday. A tornado in the western part of Iowa late Wednesday killed four Boy Scouts and injured dozens (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25107608/).
"This has been a remarkable onslaught of weather ? everything from flooding, unbelievable rain and of course tornadoes ? all descending at once," Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff told reporters near the scout camp.
Chertoff said government relief would be forthcoming but the department also needed to keep some resources in reserve with the onset of hurricane season.
Officials hoped sandbags would hold back floodwaters slowly moving south and eventually into the Mighty Mississippi.
In the town of Vinton Wednesday, inmates in black-and-white striped uniforms were rescued from a jail by boat as the raging Cedar River flooded the town and forced evacuations, there and in nearby Waterloo.
Officials in Wisconsin also monitored dams and high water in Indiana burst a levee Wednesday, flooding a vast stretch of farmland. In Minnesota and North Dakota, strong winds closed a highway.
Along the Mississippi River in Missouri and Illinois, the National Weather Service predicted the worst flooding in 15 years. Outlying areas could be inundated, but most of the towns are protected by levees and many low-lying property owners were bought out after massive flooding in 1993, officials said.
This year's spring deluge led some to compare it to the disaster of 1993 when the Mississippi River and its tributaries turned parts of the nation's midsection into a gigantic lake.
Corn prices hit a record high again Thursday and the short-term outlook did not look good.
"The only thing changing with this weather pattern is that we're going from wet and mild to wet and cool," said Mike Palmerino, forecaster with DTN Meteorlogix.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced it was closing locks and dams on 200 miles of the upper portion of the vital commercial waterway on Thursday, possibly through early July. The locks must be closed to remove and store electric motors that move lock gates and control valves, the corps said.
'Major flooding' likely on Mississippi
The National Weather Service predicted crests of 10 feet above flood stage and higher over the next two weeks. Most of the towns along the Mississippi are protected by levees, but outlying areas could be flooded.
"This is major flooding," weather service hydrologist Karl Sieczynski said of the Mississippi.
Meteorologist Bill Karins of NBC's WeatherPlus added: "We are in the middle of a historic flood event in the Upper Mississippi Valley. Most major Iowa rivers are cresting at all-time record levels and this water will soon raise the Mississippi River to its second highest levels in recorded history north of St. Louis.
"The Mississippi River predictions for Burlington, Iowa, call for the crest to be a one in 100-200 year flood, second only to the Great Flood of 1993, which was considered a 500-year flood event," he said.
"The story along the Mississippi River will be all the mid-sized and small towns without large levees," he added. "On the consumer side, thousands upon thousands of acres of farmland will be flooded for weeks with incredible crop losses."
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25020185/
MSN Privacy (http://mobile.msn.com/device/en-us/privacy.aspx) . Legal (http://mobile.msn.com/device/en-us/terms.aspx)
? 2008 MSNBC.com