LEVEE BREAK SENDS IOWANS FLEEING
About 600 residents of southwest Iowa were ordered Sunday to evacuate their homes after the Missouri River breached a levee across the border in Missouri.
The evacuation covers nearly half of the town of Hamburg, said Stefanie Bond, spokeswoman for the Iowa Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management. Residents, most of them on the south side of the city of 1,141, were being told to get out within 24 hours.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers reported a levee was breached Sunday morning south of Hamburg in Missouri's Atchison County. The corps' Col. Robert Ruch said crews had been working Saturday on another issue near the breach and all workers were evacuated.
Iowa sent a Black Hawk helicopter Sunday to drop 1,000-pound sandbags on the levee, said Gen. Derek Hill, head of the Iowa Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, adding it was too dangerous to use ground crews. It was not known how long the work would take. Rhonda Wiley, emergency management director for Atchison County, Mo., said another nearby levee had a similar break Saturday, but crews were able to repair it.
The corps predicts the river will crest at 27 feet or higher in Nebraska City, Neb., which is across the river from Hamburg. Flood stage is 18 feet. As of Sunday afternoon, the river was at 23.14 feet at Nebraska City, according to the National Weather Service.
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