[avaiftBoara]

Waters in Flooded City in Iowa Likely to Crest Soon
By CHRISTOPHER MAAG and MIKE NIZZA
Published: June 12, 2008

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa — Officials began to clear people out of downtown Des Moines and a hospital was evacuated and highway closed in Cedar Rapids on Friday as flooding in Iowa reached record levels.

Des Moines officials said the decision to clear the downtown area of residents and workers was based on new information from the Army Corps of Engineers that indicated water could reach the top of a crucial levee.

City officials described the evacuation as voluntary, but Des Moines Mayor Frank Cownie told The Associated Press that it was important “to err on the side of citizens and residents.” The National Weather Service said that one section of the Des Moines River was peaking at 35.3 feet, but would fall below its previous record, 34.3 feet, by Saturday morning.

About 100 miles southwest of Des Moines in Cedar Rapids, which had already been deluged by record-breaking floods, more heavy rain overnight further swelled the Cedar River. Forecasters predicted that the water would crest by the end of the day and begin to slowly recede over the weekend.

Officials at Mercy Medical Center hospital, fearing they would lose power, decided to send its 176 patients, including babies in intensive care and nursing home residents, to other facilities. On Thursday morning, the hospital had switched to backup generators, which were threatened by floodwaters hours later.


A flooded neighborhood in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, on Friday.

“Our hope was to continue to operate and serve our patients as we always have,” Tim Charles, the hospital’s president, said in a statement.

“Unfortunately, this has become a disaster of unpredictable and potentially catastrophic proportions.” Volunteers played a major role in the evacuation.

To the south of the city, the rising Cedar River covered Interstate 80, severing the coast-to-coast link. A day earlier, Amtrak had canceled service to Chicago on its California Zephyr line after tracks were submerged.

While the cresting of the floodwaters was good news for Cedar Rapids, the city was expected to stay wet for a while. The National Weather Service said the river would not return to its previous record depth of 20 feet, set in 1851, until Thursday. More rain may fall over the weekend, according to forecasts.

“We’ve got serious problems,” said Justin Shields, a Cedar Rapids City Council member. “And we’ve got a long way to go yet.”

Water was in short supply, and only one of six wells in the city was functioning properly. “If we lost that one we would be in serious trouble,” Dave Koch of the Cedar Rapids fire department told The A.P. “Basically we are using more water than we are producing.”

The Linn County Emergency Management Agency warned that the water shortage could last weeks. “It’s not conserve water because the world is going to be better because of it,” Dustin Hinrichs, a spokesman for the agency, told The Gazette. “It’s conserve water because we might not have any tomorrow.”

Power failures reduced the capacity of the local water treatment plant to 25 percent. At 6 p.m. on Thursday, emergency management officials announced that Cedar Rapids residents would be required to use water only for drinking until further notice.

By Friday morning, the Cedar River was about 31 feet deep, or 19 feet above flood stage, according to the National Weather Service. The water was expected to rise another seven inches by Friday afternoon, and reach a record crest.

“Usually if you break a record, you only do it by an inch or two,” said Jeff Zogg, a hydrologist for the Weather Service in Davenport, Iowa. “But breaking it by six feet? That’s pretty amazing.”

On Thursday, the white T-shirt worn by Chuck Johnson, 56, was soaked to the neckline after he waded though floodwaters to his house to retrieve garbage bags packed with clothes. “We all thought this was a good place to live because it would never flood,” Mr. Johnson said.

Most of downtown Cedar Rapids was underwater. That includes City Hall, the county courthouse and jail, all of which, in acts of civic hubris, were built on an island in the middle of the river.

“Well, the island is part of the river now,” said Mike Goldberg, the administrative services director for Linn County.

About 8,000 people have evacuated their homes, Mr. Koch said. And 5,500 were without electricity. Those whose power has been lost should expect to go without for a week or more as utility companies struggle to prevent further damage to their critical infrastructure, said Scott Drzycimski, a spokesman for Alliant Energy.

“We’ve lost most of the battles at this point,” Mr. Goldberg said. “At this point we’re just waiting for the water to crest so we can get started on recovery efforts.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/12/us...vS13hARtwUvHUA
Copyright 2008 New York Times Company