Spencer City Staff and First Responders Share Flood Stories

(Spencer, IA) — City staff in Spencer are sharing stories about the recent flood…

“We actually rescued a victim that was surrounded by water and hanging onto a fence post. The dispatchers were calling in and said that they could hear water and we had to get to her,” said Spencer Fire Chief Jesse Coulson.

Coulson said staff and volunteers rescued hundreds of people, and logged 12-hundred hours of work.

“Very conservatively we tracked over 383 rescues in that 12-hour period. That’s a very conservative number, I can imagine that we are probably closer to between 700 and 800 people rescued from the water,” said Coulson.

After the water receded, they checked foundations of homes and found nearly 100 were left unstable due to the flood.