DES MOINES – Gov. Kim Reynolds and Nebraska Governor Jim Pillen have issued a joint request for people to remain off the Missouri River in the coming days, as water levels continue to surpass flood stage. That urgent message comes following the latest update from emergency management officials and representatives from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.  

Governors Reynolds and Pillen stressed the seriousness of the situation, and the need to remain informed and make safety a priority: “Now is not the time to be on the water. In addition to higher-than-normal flow, there’s also the potential for more debris in the water, which poses a significant risk to anyone on the Missouri. It’s best to wait until levels return to normal to resume regular activities.”  

Excessive rainfall in eastern South Dakota, northeastern Nebraska and northwestern Iowa has resulted in flooding, road closures and evacuations in affected areas. Officials on both sides of the river have been closely monitoring conditions along the river and its tributaries since late last week.

(Radio Iowa) – Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds toured northwest Iowa communities affected by floodwaters today (Monday). Her first stop was in Hawarden, which has lost its water and sewer plants and some 60 residents spent Sunday night in the shelter at the West Sioux high school. “You know we got to get the wastewater treatment stood back up, we want to make sure that the water continues to be drinkable, we need to get more wells online,” Reynolds says. “Probably the biggest need going forward we know is housing.”

Reynolds has department heads with her on the tour and says they are already discussing the housing problem. “We’re already working with the, with the team to put some really innovative programs together to meet those unmet needs to work with developers and contractors. We don’t have five years to get homes set up. We need to do it as quickly as we can,” Reynolds says. Hawarden City Administrator Gary Tucker says 190 homes in had significant damage, and another 120 had moderate to minor damage, and 100 businesses were impacted. He says there is still about one-third of the community is still without power, the water plant is back running, but it could be some time before the wastewater system is back online.

Governor Kim Reynolds (left) tours flood damage in Hawarden. (photo from Reynold’s X account)

“The homes that dump into our wastewater plant may be able to utilize it maybe towards the end of this week, but the full implementation of our wastewater plant is going to take a couple of months for sure,” Tucker says. They mayor says volunteers should follow Hawarden’s Facebook page to stay up to date with opportunities to help. The governor has requested a presidential disaster declaration, and Congressman Randy Feenstra is hopeful that will get done soon.

“Because that opens the door for helping long term places where people can stay, whether that be in hotels and other places rental units, and then also transportation,” Feenstra says. “We’ve got a lot of bridges that are going to be out, we need dollars to fix those and then get get water and sewer plants back up and all these communities. So it’s a challenge but we’ll meet the challenge and all of us together and we’ll get it done.” The governor also visited is also visiting Rock Valley, Rock Rapids, Spencer and Cherokee today (Monday).

(Radio Iowa) – Almost a thousand northwest Iowans spent part of the weekend in one of a half-dozen American Red Cross shelters after flooding forced them to evacuate their homes.

Emily Holley, spokeswoman for the Nebraska-Iowa region of the Red Cross, says the agency is managing or supporting six Iowa shelters, two each in Rock Valley and Spencer and one each in Cherokee and Correctionville.

“Our volunteers are on site at the shelters to welcome people who’ve been displaced from their homes or needing a safe place to stay, meals, snacks, comfort kits,” Holley says. “Comfort kits are small bags full of basic toiletries that you might not have time to grab if you’re evacuating your home.”

So far, she says the Red Cross isn’t running into any trouble getting personnel or supplies into flooded areas. Once it’s safe, Holley says volunteers will assess the residential damage in impacted communities across the region, as hundreds of homes were inundated by flood waters. That assessment will help the agency prepare for what families may need in the coming days and weeks.

“We are certainly on quite the disaster cycle this summer,” Holley says, “and actually for the last three months, the Red Cross has been working nonstop to respond to weather-related disasters across the country, and we’ve been seeing a lot of that here in Iowa.”

It’s been a little over a month since the town of Greenfield was hit by a massive tornado that damaged or destroyed dozens of homes and claimed five lives. It was among 86 tornadoes that hit Iowa this spring, which is already well over the average of around 50 per year. Holley says it’s a very unfortunate trend.

“We’re responding to nearly twice as many large disasters as we did a decade ago,” Holley says, “and in 2023 alone, the U.S. actually experienced an all-time high of $28 billion-plus disasters that ravaged communities and forced hundreds of thousands of people to flee from severe storms, flooding, wildfires, things like that.”

Iowans who would like to help can call 800-RED CROSS, visit RedCross.org or text “REDCROSS” to 90999 to make a ten-dollar donation.

The Red Cross shelters in northwest Iowa are at:

· Cherokee Washington High School, 600 West Bluff Street, Cherokee
· River Valley Community School, 916 Hackberry Street, Correctionville
· Faith Reformed Church, 1305 7th Street, Rock Valley
· Trinity Christian Reformed Church, 2020 8th Street SE, Rock Valley
· Faith Pentecostal Church, 1700 11th Avenue SW, Spencer
· CrossWinds Church, 1900 Grand Avenue, Suite A, Spencer

(Iowa News Service) – Representatives from Union Pacific Railroad will be at a town hall meeting in Council Bluffs tomorrow night to hear about the so-called ‘triangle of death’ being created by some of its train tracks. The chronically blocked tracks are frustrating to residents, but also potentially deadly. Council Bluffs used to be home to eight rail companies. They’ve consolidated to four, but there are still 48 crossings in town, and people in about 50 homes are trapped by tracks on two sides. Resident Andrew Whitehill says he sees drivers every day create dangerous situations in a residential area where children are playing.

It’s more of an issue now because as rail carriers have consolidated, the trains making cross-country trips are longer, stretching well beyond the railyard and onto tracks in the city, blocking crossings. The town hall is scheduled for 6:30 tomorrow night in the police department building. U-P has said it is committed to a fix.

Freight train at crossing gate

Mayor Matt Walsh says Union Pacific representatives expressed surprise over the blocked tracks when he met with them, but says the company is willing to make changes, including by installing new technology.

While that fix can keep people from getting into the triangle in the first place, it’s doesn’t do anything to help those who are already there. Union Pacific has told the mayor the company will schedule trains differently to avoid having both sets of tracks occupied at once, and that a new yard master will make sure it happens.

SIOUX CITY, Iowa – June 24, 2024 – If you travel on northbound Interstate 29 near Sloan you need to be aware of a short-term closure/detour of northbound I-29 from 6 p.m. tonight until midnight, weather permitting, according to the Iowa Department of Transportation’s District 3 Office.

This scheduled closure of northbound I-29 will allow crews to safely place girders for the new bridge over I-29. The first closure at this location took place on Monday night, June 17, and tonight’s closure is the last of two closures needed to place girders.

As you approach the work zone you will be safely routed around the construction work using the ramps at the I-29/Iowa 141 interchange (exit 127) in Sloan.

The Iowa DOT reminds motorists to drive with caution, obey the posted speed limit and other signs in the work area, and be aware that traffic fines for moving violations are at least double in work zones. As in all work zones, drivers should stay alert, allow ample space between vehicles, and wear seat belts.

(Radio Iowa) – The Big Sioux River crested in Sioux City this (Monday) morning at 45 feet. City Fire Marshal Mark Aesoph says that’s over seven feet higher than the previous record. “It’s just been difficult to predict what’s going to happen when levels are this high when we have no history with it,” he says. A temporary levee was built to protect a Sioux City neighborhood, but Aesoph says water has gone over another levee just to the east, which was not expected.

“The elevation at this area was apparently lower than anticipated and recorded for our planning purposes,” he says, “and what that did was it allowed water inside the levee area in Riverside.” Water has come up through storm drains in low areas of Sioux City’s Riverside neighborhood and a mandatory evacuation was issued for some areas. Aesoph says crews started going door to door this (Monday) morning to notify residents.

Officials expects evacuations in Sioux City’s Riverside neighborhood to expand

“We do anticipate that the evacuation area will continue to grow as water continues to rise within the levee,” Aesoph says. “The city has deployed many pumps through the area, but unfortunately we just can’t keep up with a river that is flowing at that pace with that much water.”

The Tyson Events Center is open as an emergency shelter and buses are available for residents who are evacuating.

(Radio Iowa) – Nearly 400 people had to be rescued as flood waters rushed into Spencer this weekend and one person has been reported missing. Spencer Fire Chief Jesse Coulson says his department launched two rescue teams — one on the north side of the river that cuts through the city and one on the south side of Spencer, then volunteers with boats joined the effort to rescue 383 people. “We had two rescued by the Air National Guard off of a vehicle top out of the river,” Coulson says. The driver of a submerged vehicle in Spencer has not been found.

“Otherwise, every rescue and all our searching that has been reported to us has been accounted for,” he says. An engineer who’s a frequent consultant for the City of Spencer estimates the rest on the Little Sioux River topped 22 feet. The previous high water mark was two feet lower — from a 1953 flood. Hundreds of Spencer homes have flood damage. About 400 Spencer residents sought refuge in shelters this weekend.

The Sioux County Sheriff released drone footage of Hawarden, Iowa, on Saturday.

(Radio Iowa) – Counties downstream of the flooding in northwest Iowa are preparing for all that water to flow south. Webster County Emergency Management director, Dylan Hagen, says volunteers Sunday putting up sandbags along the Des Moines River. “We do still have sandbagging operations happening in Lehigh, Otho and Willa Ridge. We have sand and bags available for anybody that needs them,” Hagen says. “The city of Fort Dodge is currently working on, I believe three different sandbagging locations.” Hagen says the water flowing down could turn into a dangerous situation for those residents along the Des Moines River.

“It’ll be the third highest if it follows the forecasted model, so definitely something that is concerning to us and it is a dangerous situation and we just asked it people stay away from flooded areas and rivers,” he says. Hamilton County Emergency Management coordinator Tim Zahn says they’re shouldn’t have any major concerns. “There’s a small section near Stratford along the Des Moines River that is expected to crest at about 25 feet. That isn’t a major flood level. But it may affect the roads in that area a little bit,” he says.

(Radio Iowa) – The Army Corps of Engineers has deployed four surveillance teams to check levies along the Missouri River, but the Corps is predicting minor to moderate flooding along the Missouri below Sioux City. John Remus is the Army Corps of Engineers chief of water management for the Missouri River basin. “As long as the levies hold, we are not expecting any major impacts. There will be some interior drainage issues,” Remus says. “There are some communities that do not have levies. We have not heard from them.” The Missouri River in the Omaha/Council Bluffs metro is expected to crest sometime Wednesday night or Thursday morning. The crest as the river exits Iowa near Nebraska City is expected to occur on Thursday night.

Kevin Lowe is a National Weather Service hydrologist who coordinates Missouri River forecasts. “We do expect flooding to happen along almost the entire Missouri River main-stem,” Lowe says. If forecasted river levels hold, officials say it’s likely levies along the river will work as designed. Spencer Giles is the emergency management chief for the Omaha district of the Army Corps of Engineers. He says the Corps provided technical assistance to officials in Dickinson and Buena Vista Counties this weekend and are ready to provide supplies where needed. “We maintain an inventory of various flood fighting materials and equipment positioned throughout the district,” he says.

In Dickinson County, the water level in Big Spirit Lake is more than a foot above its normal high water mark and Highway 9 between Lake Park and Spirit Lake remains closed due to flooding.