Flooding breaches levees in Iowa as more rain threatens

Floodwaters breached levees in Iowa, creating dangerous conditions Tuesday that prompted evacuations as the deluged Midwest faced another round of severe storms.

The sheriff's office in Monona County, near the Nebraska border, said the Little Sioux River breached levees in several areas. Patrick Prorok, emergency management coordinator in Monona County, described waking people in Rodney, a town of about 45 people, at 4 a.m. to recommend evacuation.

In neighboring Woodbury County, the sheriff’s office posted drone video on Facebook showing the river overflowing the levee and flooding land in rural Smithland.

No injuries were immediately reported from that, although one death from flooding in Iowa was reported earlier.

Flooding from major waterways like the Missouri and Mississippi rivers tends to get the lion’s share of attention for the amount of massive destruction it can wreak, such as washing away sections of major interstates. But communities across the rain-soaked Upper Plains and Midwest also are seeing their homes, buildings and bridges ruined by normally unassuming tributaries that have swollen into rushing rivers.

Sioux City Fire Marshal Mark Aesoph said water stopped overtopping the Big Sioux River levee around midnight. “We’re now in the process of getting that trapped water that’s inside the levee back over the levee and into the river,” he said.

Aesoph estimates hundreds of homes likely have some internal water damage.

Tears streamed down Megan Jackson's cheeks Tuesday as she stood at the edge of murky brown floodwaters submerging Beck Street in Sioux City's Riverside neighborhood, which was evacuated as the Big Sioux surged.

"I just want to go home," Jackson, clad in black rubber boots, said as her neighbor, Jessica Frazee, and father, Jerry Jackson, consoled her.

  Buy Photo

"She lost everything. I told her she was lucky she got out alive," Jerry Jackson said.

Megan Jackson fled the brown ranch-style home where she has lived for 10 years at 2:45 a.m. Sunday, after a train bridge over the Big Sioux River partially collapsed. Jackson said she had just seven minutes to grab some clothing from the house. She put her 9-year-old son and two dogs in the car and drove over neighbors' lawns to escape the encroaching water.

"I grabbed just random stuff that didn't make any sense. I was panicking," said Jackson, who wanted to retrieve a pair of shoes for her son Tuesday, but ultimately decided against it. The water was just too high. "I was just hoping to get in so I could get his shoes and, obviously, that's not going to happen."

Frazee said she is grateful she and her family are safe, but also expressed frustration with the city of Sioux City and Woodbury County officials.

She said she had made multiple calls to report observations and ask for help from the city and police. Franzee said she received assurances that "we were in good shape, and that they were sending help.“

More severe weather was forecast to move in overnight, bringing large hail, damaging winds and even a brief tornado or two in parts of Western Iowa and Eastern Nebraska, according to the National Weather Service. Showers and storms were also possible in parts of South Dakota and Minnesota, the agency said.

The weather service also predicted more than two dozen points of major flooding in southern Minnesota, eastern South Dakota and northern Iowa, and flood warnings are expected to continue into the week.

Storms last week dumped heavy rains, with as much as 18 inches falling south of Sioux Falls, S.D., the weather service said. Places that didn’t get as much rain had to contend with the extra water moving downstream.

Many streams, especially with additional rainfall, may not crest until later this week as the floodwaters drain down a web of rivers to the Missouri and Mississippi. The Missouri will crest at Omaha on Thursday, said Kevin Low, a weather service hydrologist.

The heavy rains were blamed in the deaths of at least two people in the Midwest. On Saturday, an Illinois man died while trying to drive around a barricade in Spencer as the Little Sioux River swept his truck away, the Clay County Sheriff’s Office said. Another person died in South Dakota, Gov. Kristi Noem said without providing details.

North of Des Moines, the lake above the Saylorville Dam was absorbing river surge and expected to largely protect the metro area from flooding, according to the Polk County Emergency Management Agency. The Army Corps of Engineers projected Tuesday that water levels at Saylorville Lake will rise by more than 30 feet by the Fourth of July.

Further west along the Des Moines River, residents in several communities including Fort Dodge and Humboldt were placing sandbags in the high heat and humidity.

Outside Mankato, Minn., the local sheriff’s office said there was a “partial failure” of the western support structure for the Rapidan Dam on the Blue Earth River after the dam became plugged with debris. Flowing water eroded the western bank, rushed around the dam and washed out an electrical substation, causing about 600 power outages.

  Buy Photo

Eric Weller, emergency management director for the Blue Earth County sheriff, said the bank would likely erode more, but he didn’t expect the concrete dam itself to fail.

Dolly Butz of the Sioux City Journal contributed to this report.