By Melanie S. Welte
The Associated Press
DES MOINES, Iowa — One person was missing after raging floodwaters swept three cars off a road near Des Moines early Wednesday, and college athletes rallied to protect their stadium from the rising water after three nights of torrential rain.
Emergency crews recovered 10 of the 11 people who were in the vehicles around 4 a.m. when the storm-swollen Mud Creek washed them off the road between Altoona and Mitchellville, said A.J. Munn, the emergency management director for Polk County.
Munn said four of those recovered from the submerged cars were taken to the hospital. He said the fast-flowing waters were hampering efforts to find the final passenger.
“Divers can’t enter the water because it’s too dangerous. It’s moving too swiftly,” Munn said.
Thunderstorms have hit Iowa for three consecutive nights, sending rivers and creeks boiling over their banks. The National Weather Service said 2 to 4 inches of rain fell on central and eastern Iowa, with up to 6 inches in some spots.
Several hundred people were evacuated from their homes in Ames early Wednesday and sandbagging was under way, after 3 to 5 inches of rain pushed Squaw Creek and Skunk River to break their banks in the city 30 miles north of Des Moines, Fire Chief Clint Petersen said.
“This is a particularly dangerous situation,” he said.
The Iowa Department of Transportation closed the southbound lanes of Interstate 35 just south of Ames, and both lanes of U.S. Highway 30 in the area were closed.
Iowa State University football players were stacking sandbags around the football stadium Wednesday, said department spokesman Tom Kroeschell. He said the nearby soccer complex was flooded overnight and that flooding threatened Hilton Coliseum, which hosts Iowa State’s basketball teams.