(CNN) -- A dam on an eastern Iowa lake suffered a "catastrophic" failure Saturday, sending a massive amount of water into nearby communities and forcing residents to flee, officials said.
The Lake Delhi dam, about 45 miles north of Cedar Rapids, failed as a result of "massive rain -- a very unusually high amount this season," according to Jim Flansburg, communications director for Gov. Chet Culver.
Culver told CNN that nearly 10 inches of rain had recently fallen in a 12-hour period in the area and was "too much water for the dam to hold."
The roads on either side of the dam -- which were part of the cement dam's containment measures -- apparently gave out as a result of the rainfall, Flansburg told CNN.
The National Weather Service reported a 30-foot-wide gap in the berm alongside the dam.
Video showed massive amounts of water violently gushing from the pool behind the dam into the Maquoketa River below. Nearby homes and buildings were under water up to their eaves.
However, as of Saturday evening, the waters appeared to be receding, Flansburg said.
Much of the flooding occurred in farm areas instead of well-populated neighborhoods, Flansburg said, adding a would-be catastrophe was avoided.
Earlier Saturday, residents in Hopkinton, a town of about 700, were given minutes to flee approaching floodwaters, Flansburg said.
No injuries were reported.
The town of Monticello, where Culver was meeting with emergency personnel, was also under a flood warning.
Amanda Duck, a trained weather spotter along with her husband in Monticello, told CNN she had been watching the water slowly rise all day.
By evening, water was beginning to seep over a road that runs behind her house and into her neighbor's yard, she said.
"We're both just in a state of shock," Duck said. "We're just trying to keep our wits about us and help our neighbors."
Culver activated the National Guard in the area to help with recovery efforts, his office said.
He also issued disaster proclamations for Delaware and Jones counties due to the flooding.
Culver credited the lack of injuries to local officials providing early warning to residents in the flood plain about the possibility of a dam breach.
The governor said such a failure had never happened before.
Wow, this is seriously bad.
No injuries were reported, here's hoping that it will stay that way.
In case anyone was worried, this is nowhere near where I'm living and this river doesn't feed into the Cedar River, which is the one going through town. Because that's a pretty flat area, the floodwaters spread across farmland and inundated a lot of corn and soybean fields first so it wasn't a powerful deadly channel of rushing water washing away anything in its path, just a spreading rise everywhere. A lot of people were still in the path of that spreading rise, but it seems they were smart enough not to try to drive through it, which seems to be the cause of most usual flood deaths.
However, I should note that all the local streams and rivers have been very high since I arrived last year. This nearby park I want to visit has a whole system of forest trails that are underwater (I could see the top arch of a bridge over the stream just peeking out the top of the water), and another one I volunteer at has a pond which is supposed to be a vernal pool and wetland (the Google Maps image even shows grass growing on that spot), but has been filled since I arrived. They even had to dig a drainage ditch to make sure it didn't overfill and flood the area around it and it's too deep for cattails except on the edges. This entire region is saturated. I read that there is flooding in Chicago right now as well.
For complete trivia: it's pronounced "Dell-high." I don't know why and neither do the Iowa natives I asked.
rhoenix wrote:I'm glad to hear you're okay. That's also rather impressive to hear - any other effects that you've seen from where you are?
There's been some flash flooding as well (one instance of it flooded the basement where I live now). For the most part, while we've been getting a lot of rain there have been some drying out stretches in between major storms that also let enough water run downstream. It's not 2008 again, yet.
Also during the winter we had snow on the ground continuously from November through March, which people said was unusual; the small warmish spells usually melt the snow a couple times in the winter (though they get replenished later), but enough was falling that it didn't. That also meant there was a deeper snowpack to melt when spring did arrive which meant a lot more water already in the area.
I've read some predictions about climate change in different regions, and the prediction for this area of the midwest is increasing average rainfall for the next fifty years or so. This isn't going away for a while.
Glad you're okay Amy. Strangely enough Az had a long, cool, wet winter to this year. The climate is getting decidely odder. Wonder if we can use that extra rain for anything useful.
"it takes two sides to end a war but only one to start one. And those who do not have swords may still die upon them." Tolken
