DES MOINES – Gov. Kim Reynolds announced Mondayy that President Biden has approved Iowa’s request for a Major Disaster Declaration for Iowa counties where significant damage was sustained from severe storms, flooding, straight-line winds, and tornadoes that occurred beginning on June 16, 2024 and continuing.

Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) are now authorized to provide assistance to Clay, Emmet, Lyon, Plymouth, and Sioux Counties. The Governor will continue to request additional counties as more information is collected.

Residents in these counties can now apply for the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) Individual Assistance Program, which provides disaster-affected homeowners, renters, and businesses with programs and services to maximize recovery, including assistance with housing, personal property replacement, medical expenses, and legal services.

Individuals and business owners who sustained losses in the designated areas can begin applying for assistance by calling 1-800-621-3362. The helpline operates from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m., 7 days a week. Anyone using a relay service, such as video relay service (VRS), captioned telephone service or others, can give FEMA the number for that service. Other options include registering online at www.disasterassistance.gov or downloading the FEMA app.

Homeowners, renters, businesses, and nonprofit organizations whose property was damaged or destroyed by this disaster, may be able to apply for low-interest disaster loans from the SBA. In addition, small businesses, agricultural cooperatives, and private, nonprofit organizations impacted by the severe weather may be eligible to apply for working capital loans.

Applicants may apply online, receive additional disaster assistance information, and download applications at www.sba.gov/funding-programs/disaster-assistance.

Applicants may also call SBA’s Customer Service Center at 1-800-659-2955 or email disastercustomerservice@sba.gov for more information on SBA disaster assistance. For people who are deaf, hard of hearing, or have a speech disability, please dial 7-1-1 to access telecommunications relay services.

The Iowa Individual Assistance Grant Program is no longer available in counties where the FEMA Individual Assistance Program has been made available and residents should apply for the FEMA Individual Assistance Program.

In addition, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Public Assistance Program has been activated for Buena Vista, Clay, Dickinson, Emmet, Lyon, O’Brien, Osceola, Plymouth, and Sioux Counties. The Public Assistance Program provides funding for emergency work, such as debris removal and emergency protective measures.

ATLANTIC, IOWA – June 25, 2024 – If you travel on Interstate 29 or I-680 north of Council Bluffs, the Iowa Department of Transportation’s District 4 Office wants you to know that it intends to close I-29 from milepost 55 (25th Street at the north edge of Council Bluffs) to the I-29/880 interchange (near Loveland) at approximately 11 a.m. on Tuesday, June 25. Timing will depend on rising flood water levels on the Missouri River.

In addition, the portion of I-680 west of I-29 located in Iowa will also be closed at approximately 11 a.m. due to rising flood waters.

Once the roadway is closed you will follow a signed detour that will start at the I-29/880 interchange near Loveland, continue east to the I-80/880 interchange, and then southwest on I-80 to Council Bluffs. If you are driving between Iowa and Nebraska, you should use I-80. Local traffic in the Omaha/Council Bluffs area should follow the signed detour.

The Iowa DOT reminds travelers to never enter a water-covered roadway. Do not move or travel around barricades or fencing as they are placed there for your safety. Turn around and don’t drown.

(UPDATED by Radio Iowa) – Authorities say the suspect in a southwest Iowa bank robbery died by suicide in a farm field. According to an Iowa Department of Public Safety news release, a man walked into the Iowa State Savings Bank in Lenox at about 1:30 Monday afternoon and demanded money. He left on a motorcycle, was chased into the neighboring county, crashed into a farm field and started running. Officers from four county sheriff’s departments and the Iowa State Patrol surrounded the field.

The Creston News Advertiser reports authorities used a drone to speak to the man, who responded that he would take his own life. The state agency’s news release indicates the suspect fired one shot and died of a self-inflicted wound. The Creston newspaper has identified the man as 45 year old Steven Sapp, a man from Nebraska with a criminal record.

Several media reports from more than a decade ago show Sapp did time in a Missouri prison after pleading guilty to stabbing a man to death with a pocket knife in southern Missouri in 2008. In 2013, Sapp was convicted of robbing a Pizza Hut in southwest Nebraska and beating two female employees at the restaurant. He was released from a Nebraska prison in 2022 after serving nine years on a 21 year sentence.

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