Flooding causes bridge troubles in Iowa, Ill.
OAKVILLE, Iowa (AP) - June 17, 2008 Authorities saved several people, including a motorist rescued
from on top of his car, after a levee break near the small village
of Gulfport, Ill. They closed the Great River Bridge that connects
Gulfport to Burlington via U.S. Highway 34, as well as part of the
highway.
People were urged to evacuate the area, Illinois Emergency
Management Agency spokesman Chris McCloud said. Floodwaters
threatened about 7,500 acres in Illinois, Henderson County Deputy
Sheriff Don Seitz said.
About 20 miles down the river, the BNSF Railway Co. swing span
bridge was closed early Tuesday to car traffic at Fort Madison,
near the Iowa-Illinois line, Lee County emergency management
director Steve Cirinna said.
About 30 people were working to raise the railroad tracks above
floodwaters, but BNSF Railway Co. spokesman Steve Forsberg said the
bridge hadn't closed to trains.
Car traffic moves on the bridge and trains travel on tracks
below.
The federal government predicts that 27 levees could potentially
overflow along the river if the weather forecast is on the mark and
a massive sandbagging effort fails to raise the level of the
levees, according to a map obtained Monday by The Associated Press.
Officials are placing millions of sandbags on top of the levees
in Illinois, Iowa and Missouri to prevent overflowing. There is no
way to predict whether these levees will break, said Ron Fournier,
a spokesman with the Army Corps of Engineers in Iowa.
In much of Iowa, there were small signs of a return to normalcy:
Interstate 80 reopened near Iowa City for the first time in days,
with Interstate 380 to the north scheduled to reopen early Tuesday.
On the University of Iowa campus, officials began to take stock of
the damage.
In Cedar Rapids, hazardous conditions forced officials on Monday
to stop taking residents into homes where the water had receded.
Broken gas lines, sink holes and structural problems with homes
made conditions unsafe, said Dave Koch, a city spokesman. Officials
hoped to allow residents in soon.
Frustrations spilled over at one checkpoint, where a man was
arrested at gunpoint after he tried to drive past police in his
pickup truck.
In Des Moines, where a levee failure Saturday sent water pouring
into the Birdland neighborhood, some residents returned for the
first time to see the damage.
Where floodwaters remained, they were a noxious brew of sewage,
farm chemicals and fuel. Bob Lanz used a 22-foot aluminum flatboat
to navigate through downtown Oakville, where the water reeked of
pig feces and diesel fuel.
"You can hardly stand it," Lanz said as he surveyed what
remained of his family's hog farm. "It's strong."
LeRoy Lippert, chairman of emergency management and homeland
security in nearby Des Moines County, warned people to avoid the
floodwaters: "If you drink this water and live, tell me about it.
You have no idea. It is very, very wise to stay out of it. It's as
dangerous as anything."
Mixed into the floodwaters are pesticides, herbicides and
fertilizer from Iowa's vast stretches of farmland.
Ken Sharp, environmental health director for the Iowa Department
of Public Health, acknowledged that the floodwaters could make
people sick. But he said the sheer volume of water can dilute
hazardous substances.
The flooding also raised concerns of contamination in rural
wells, said G. Richard Olds, professor and chairman of the Medical
College of Wisconsin.
"For rural folks, it's going to be hard to know if their
water's safe or not," he said.
Most requests for state aid came from Des Moines County, where
the Mississippi River was expected to crest Tuesday evening at 26
feet in a mostly rural area near Burlington. Early Tuesday, the
river was at 25.7 feet - more than 10 feet above flood stage - and
still rising.
Crews worked to shore up a levee about 7 miles north of
Burlington, where water covered about 2 blocks of the downtown
area. Several businesses spent the night pumping water from
basements, said Sgt. Chad Zahn of the Burlington Police Department.
Several thousand acres and about 250 homes would be flooded if
the levee breaks, said Gina Hardin, the county's emergency
management coordinator.
Two more deaths were reported Monday in Iowa, bringing the
state's death toll to five.
Also Monday, the American Red Cross said its disaster relief
fund has been completely spent, and the agency is borrowing money
to help flood victims throughout the Midwest.
In the college town of Iowa City, damage appeared limited. Some
400 homes took on water Sunday, and 16 University of Iowa buildings
sustained some flood damage over the weekend. But the town's levees
were holding and the Iowa River was falling.
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Associated Press writers Jim Suhr in Cedar Rapids; Maria Sudekum
Fisher in Burlington; Jim Salter in Iowa City; Amy Lorentzen, Henry
C. Jackson, David Pitt and James Beltran in Des Moines; and Eileen
Sullivan in Washington, D.C., contributed to this report.