HAMBURG, Iowa — The rising Missouri River ruptured two levees in northwest Missouri on Monday, sending torrents of flood waters over farmland toward a small town in Iowa and a resort community in Missouri.
Water rushing from a 50-foot-wide hole in a levee near the southwest Iowa town of Hamburg was expected by today to reach a secondary levee built to protect the town of about 1,100 people. If that levee fails, parts of Hamburg could be under as much as 10 feet of standing water, officials said.
The river punched a 225-foot-wide hole through a levee about 45 miles south near Big Lake, Mo. The roughly 30 residents who stayed in the resort town after the river started rising were told to leave Monday.
The Army Corps of Engineers has steadily increased the amount of water it is releasing from dams along the Misouri River to account for excess water from heavy spring rains in the Upper Plains and to clear out space for above-average snowmelt coming down from the Rockies.
