Iowa counties asking state to help them dig out

Three Iowa counties have been added to a growing list of snowed-in places that need state crews to help them dig out after last week's storm.

Iowa Gov. Chet Culver's disaster proclamation will allow the state to help Audubon, Monona and Mills counties. Culver has already announced state snow crews will work in Crawford, Harrison, Pottawattamie and Shelby counties, and some smaller rural communities in western Iowa.

The Iowa Department of Transportation will send snowplow trucks and snowblowers, as well as supplies to the counties hit hard by winter storms.

Transportation officials have said that the accumulated snow and blowing drifts clogged about 75 percent of rural roads in far western Pottawattamie County.

-- Associated Press