Midwest US flooding forces evacuations

Source: Agencies  |   2008-6-14  |     ONLINE EDITION

RISING water from the Cedar River forced the evacuation of a downtown hospital yesterday after residents of more than 3,000 homes in Cedar Rapids fled for higher ground. A railroad bridge collapsed, and 400 city blocks were under water.

The floods in America's Midwest are so serious and widespread that they have ruined much of the Midwest's corn and soybean crops, pushing commodity prices even higher in a world short of food.

In Des Moines, 100 miles (160 kilometers) to the southwest, officials issued a voluntary evacuation order for much of downtown and other areas bordering the Des Moines River. Mayor Frank Cownie said the evacuations were an attempt "to err on the side of citizens and residents."

Des Moines is Iowa's capital and largest city, with about 190,000 residents. But the hardest-hit was Cedar Rapids, a city of 124,000 people.

Gov. Chet Culver declared 83 of the state's 99 counties to be state disaster areas, and nine rivers were at or above historic flood levels. Elsewhere in the upper Midwest, rivers and streams tipping their banks forced evacuations, closed roads, and even threatened drinking water.

The 176 patients in the Cedar Rapids hospital, including about 30 patients in a nursing home facility at the hospital, were being evacuated to other hospitals in the region. The evacuation started late Thursday night and continued Friday morning in the city of 124,000 residents.

"Some are frail and so it's a very delicate process with them," said Karen Vander Sanden, a hospital spokeswoman.

Water was seeping into the hospital's lower levels, where the emergency generator is located, said Dustin Hinrichs of the Linn County emergency operations center.

"They proactively and preventatively started evacuation basically guessing on the fact they were going to lose power," he said.