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DES MOINES, Iowa — A leak in a vulnerable levee protecting an Iowa neighborhood from a swollen Des Moines River was characterized Friday as “seepage” by the Army Corps of Engineers, but experts said the flood barrier remained stable as the river continued to rise.
Officials spotted a crack late Thursday in the same part of the levee that gave way in 2008 and flooded the small, working-class Des Moines neighborhood of Birdland.
The river was forecast to crest Friday at 26.5 feet, which is 3.5 feet above flood stage but less than the 31.6 feet the river reached when the levee failed two years ago, according to the National Weather Service.
