Northwest Iowans work to save their homes as rivers overtop levees, force evacuations

SMITHLAND — As some residents in northwest Iowa began to enter their homes for cleanup, others downstream were forced to evacuate Tuesday as floodwaters inundated their towns.

Rivers continued to reach record levels as Iowa entered a fourth day of historic flooding that killed at least one person whose truck was swept away by strong water near Spencer over the weekend.

President Joe Biden issued a presidential disaster declaration late Monday for residents in five northwest Iowa counties to access federal funding to rebuild.

And the Iowa Department of Transportation said it expected to close Interstate 29 north of Council Bluffs sometime Tuesday evening as water rises in the Missouri River.

More: Live updates: Levee breached on Little Sioux River, Interstate 29 closing due to flooding

Evacuations started early Tuesday in Smithland, with a population of about 180, and Rodney, with 45 people, when the Little Sioux River overtopped a levee. The river crested at 30.7 feet late Monday 18 miles north in Correctionville, about 1½ feet above the record, according to the National Water Prediction Service.

All bridges crossing the Little Sioux River in Woodbury County were closed, including Highway 141, a vital link that connects Sioux City to midsized towns like Mapleton and Denison.

Normally, the Missouri River tributary in Smithland is tame. But Tuesday the Little Sioux enveloped everything on the horizon, including the highway.

Kathryn Barber and her husband, Bill Barber, stood on a closed section of Iowa Highway 141 on Tuesday morning marveling at the power of the Little Sioux River’s floodwaters.

In front of Barber, floodwaters covered all but the top of a yellow house, its roof sticking out of the water. Baseball fields next to the road, which in drought years are as dusty as a desert, looked like marinas with only foul poles and scoreboards above the water's surface.

“It’s very surreal,” Kathryn Barber said.

More: 'I lost everything,' one Rock Valley resident says. More flooding is expected across Iowa

The Barbers live on a nearby bluff and were nervously optimistic that their home would survive the floods.

“I’m holding tight because I like my house,” Kathryn Barber said. “Honestly, I think we’ll be OK. But it’s hard when you’ve got to leave all your stuff behind. I’m not 100% confident because there’s always possibilities.”

Bill Barber’s niece lives closer to the river and evacuated earlier, he said.

“We’re going to go move all her stuff to higher ground, maybe take it upstairs,” Bill Barber said.

Cody Montgomery lives in a trailer home in a wooded enclave just off the worst of the floodwaters in Smithland. At about 10 a.m., Montgomery and several people tried to plug a drain between floodwaters and a grassy area quickly filling with water.

At first he and some friends tried to cover the drain with a tarp. When that failed they stuck an inner tube in the drain and then tried to inflate it.

“We got a drainage ditch here that’s been pretty good for all them floods before,” Montgomery said. “But our drainage system usually flows in there and goes down. With the water backing up, it started coming out of that pipe.”

When they tried to block the pipe it was waist high. By the time they finished, Montgomery pushed a friend underwater to try to block the water. But their efforts failed.

“We tried to put tubes in there, block it with anything we could,” Montgomery said. “We just couldn’t get it done. The water was rising up too fast.”

Montgomery moved into the trailer with his grandmother when he was 7 years old. Now 32, he lives there alone after his grandmother's death three years ago.

Montgomery planned to stay in the trailer until he “absolutely had to” go, adding he moved his three Harley-Davidson motorcycles and other important possessions. His cousins rallied to help him save his home.

“I hope it don’t come up anymore. Good thing it’s a trailer. I got some clearance. We should be all right, hopefully," Montgomery said. "We’ll find out.”

More: How bad was the northwest Iowa flooding? 4 graphics illustrate record-setting river levels

Montgomery works for an Ida Grove construction company as a carpenter. He was on a job site in Shenandoah building a bridge until about 5 a.m. when he left to pack up his things before water rose too much.

In Rodney, about two miles south of Smithland, most residents evacuated Tuesday morning.

In the middle of town at about 1 p.m. there were no residents, not even curious onlookers. The Little Sioux River tore through the bottom of the town, destroying at least two homes, flooding soybean fields and a public park. The river raged so loudly that it sounded like white-water rapids.

Staffers from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers were at Peters Park measuring water levels at about 1 p.m.

North of Smithland, floodwaters devastated the towns of Oto, with about 70 people, Anthon, with 530, and Correctionville, with 800, according to the Woodbury County Sheriff’s Office, which posted drone videos that showed water throughout Anthon.

Video posted by the sheriff’s office also showed raging waters in Correctionville, about 30 minutes east of Sioux City. On Monday night, Correctionville restricted travel to residents only. A curfew was put in place from 6 a.m. to 9:30 p.m.

Spencer finally sees some receding floodwater

In Spencer, the floodwaters had gone down about a foot since Monday, Clay County officials said on Tuesday afternoon.

Spencer city officials were working to get their lift pumps functioning as water levels in the city fall, Sheriff Chris Raveling said. Red Cross officials were nearby helping those who have been displaced.

“The president finally signed the disaster relief grant, so we’ve been making progress,” Raveling said.

There is no estimate yet on how many homes were damaged in the flooding, he said, but more than 380 residents were evacuated since Saturday.

Spencer sits at the convergence of the Little Sioux and Ocheyedan rivers, the latter of which surpassed its record set in 1953 by 4 feet. It has since fallen 6 feet, according to the National Water Prediction Service. The Little Sioux barely missed its record by .02 feet, and it has since fallen about 2½ feet.

Despite one fatality of the man whose truck was swept away in floodwaters Saturday, the city of Spencer already is making strides, Raveling said.

“The amount of people who pitched in and got together to evacuate people in Spencer,” Raveling said, "we had people coming in from all over with boats to get people out. The amount of support we’ve been receiving is amazing.”

Residents in Sioux City await receding floodwaters to assess damage

About 43 miles northwest, in Sioux City, residents in the Riverside neighborhood waited anxiously by the banks of the Big Sioux River to watch the floodwaters slowly recede from their homes.

Deanna Mercure, 69, returned to the neighborhood Tuesday morning to check on her home. She pointed to her green house about a block away in several feet of water.

Flooding surprised residents Sunday night into Monday when a BNSF railroad bridge connecting the neighborhood to nearby North Sioux City, South Dakota, collapsed. Neighbors monitored the flooding and talked at 8 p.m. Sunday, she said.

“They woke us up at midnight … and said, 'Everybody’s got to get out,'” Mercure said. “So you grabbed whatever you had to take, but a lot of your stuff is in there, and you can’t get in there to see it.

"The water just kept rising and kept rising. It came fast. We didn’t have much time.”

Sioux City Fire Department firefighters used an inflatable boat to retrieve medical devices for residents from homes Tuesday. Firefighters were eventually able to get the boat into deep enough water to use a powered motor.

Mercure loves her dog, Honey, and wore a pink shirt Tuesday, which read, “God is great, dogs are good and people are crazy.” She boarded her dog while she couch-surfs with friends.

By Tuesday she saw the waters decrease by about 3 feet at a nearby bridge. It appeared that sewers were starting to take in some of the floodwater as dry conditions persist for now, she said.

“Maybe by weekend we might be able to get in and see what kind of damage we have,” Mercure said.

Some of her neighbors did not want to leave, but firefighters came and rescued them with boats, she said. Mercure took a few changes of clothes but planned to visit a thrift store to find more.

According to the city of Sioux City, the Big Sioux River reached 44.5 feet on Monday afternoon, about one-half foot lower than its record high. Water overtopped the levee on North River Drive, and 17 people were evacuated by boat from the flooded area.

Sioux City officials said in a news conference Tuesday that 49 homes were still affected Tuesday in Riverside. Water was no longer topping the levee as of early Tuesday morning, and the Fire Department was able to pump out about a foot of water.

A Missouri River flood in 2011 devastated downtown Sioux City, but areas along the Big Sioux tributary were mostly spared. Mercure had minimal groundwater problems in her yard in 2011, “nothing like this,” she said. Now areas along the Missouri River are mostly fine in Sioux City.

More: How to help Iowa flooding victims: Here are the supplies they need

North central Iowa rivers see historic levels, and Saylorville Lake rises

In central Iowa, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers closed some areas at Saylorville Lake because of heavy rainfall in northern Iowa and the Des Moines River watershed. It also issued a debris warning for motorists who use the lake during the busy days leading to the Fourth of July holiday.

Polk County Emergency Management program assistant Brett McIntyre said the office is monitoring the projected flooding upstream on the Des Moines River in Fort Dodge and Humboldt but does not expect any serious impact in the Des Moines area, thanks in large part to Saylorville Lake.

The West Fork Des Moines River at Humboldt is expected to crest Wednesday evening about 1 foot higher than its record, according to the National Water Prediction Service. Record flooding already has been observed upstream in Estherville and Emmetsburg.

"Right now we're not anticipating major impacts in Des Moines, as things stand," McIntyre said Tuesday afternoon, besides perhaps some minor flooding that could impact areas like Jester Park in northwestern Polk County and Birdland Drive in Des Moines.

Saylorville, which typically acts as a buffer for major flooding, has enough room to absorb the entire flooding event so far, McIntyre said. As of noon, Saylorville was sitting at 844 feet, according to the National Weather Service's National Water Prediction Service. The flood stage is 884 feet.

McIntyre said it's fortunate that there wasn't heavy rain over the Raccoon River Valley, which can cause larger flooding problems for the metro in places like Fleur Drive and Four Mile and Walnut creeks, since there's no reservoir.

Saylorville is expected to rise through July 5 and remain high for a while, he said.

Reporters Virginia Barreda and José Mendiola contributed to this story.

Philip Joens covers retail and real estate for the Des Moines Register. He can be reached at 515-284-8184, pjoens@registermedia.com or on Twitter @Philip_Joens.

This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Northwest Iowans work to save their homes as rivers overtop levees, force evacuations