Sirens at 2 a.m. Worst hit community in rain-satrated northwest Iowa was Rock Valley, population 4,100. The sheriff reported 250 rescues. Image: Sioux County sheriff
Flat-bottom boats, dive teams mobilized for rescues
ROCK VALLEY, Iowa – A Rock River levee broke in the middle of the night, unleashing a wall of water into town. Then the water kept rising Sheriff Jamie Van Voorst activated tornado sirens to warn people to get out of bed and head to high ground. The evacuation was frantic in the dark as the water rose. For some people, an emergency shelter at a church i was inaccessible. Before the day was out, 1,000 people crowded into the church. As dawn arrived, dive teams and swift boats on rescue missions patrolled streets for stranded people. They performed 250 rescues on streets that had become silty canals, Sheriff Van Voorst said. Water was too high for tractors, trucks or loaders. In the region there had been as much as 18 inches of rain from thunderstorms. Other towns also had flooding but nothing like Rock Valley’s levee break.