IOWA CITY, Iowa (AFP) — One by one, sandbags were loaded into boats as crews in this flood ravaged town struggled to reinforce levees against the rising water.
Officials had already been forced to abandon hundreds of homes and business to the rushing Iowa River which covered 35 city blocks in Iowa City and neighboring Coralville.
But they were hoping to keep a critical telephone switching station dry and the six foot tall barrier built Friday no longer looked like it would hold.
The murky water that swallowed more than a thousand city blocks in nearby Cedar Rapids is draining down towards Iowa City.
The college town's sloping hills will save it from total devastation, but at least ten percent of its buildings will be inundated by the time the river crests around midnight on Monday, said Johnson County spokesman Mike Sullivan.
And it will take at least a week for the water to recede.
"This is a flood of epic proportions," Sullivan told AFP. "It's absolutely devastating."
A heavy snowfall and a wet spring filled Iowa's reservoirs. By the time the latest series of rainstorms hit, the ground was too saturated to hold it.
The flooding began in earnest June 8. By midweek, 83 of the state's 99 counties have been declared disaster zones.
More than three million sandbags have been filled in Johnson County alone.
The levees held for a while, but two were breached on Thursday and the water came up fast. The coast guard had to rescue stranded residents by boat and a critical pump by helicopter.
The University of Iowa asked students to help carry books, files and furniture out of low-lying buildings and redoubled efforts to protect others.
And the National Guard was called in to erect barriers around power stations, water treatment plants and other critical infrastructure.
"It's been a lot of sandbagging," Lieutenant Colonel Tony Merrill said as he watched the slow but steady progress of his crew.
They were behind schedule after a quick but savage storm blew threw, spraying rain and sending off the tornado sirens when a funnel cloud was spotted.
The crew of 120 had to abandon their boats and their bags to find shelter.
Then one of his trucks was stranded after it slipped off the road, the sandbags in its bed tipping precariously towards the water.
A group of soldiers waded through the chest-high water to find a solid spot and direct the truck back on the submerged road.
Bending down to grab a bag in each hand, men in waist-high waders with shirts displaying the logos of the fire department, sheriff and coast guard marched back and forth from a pile of sandbags to the waiting boats.
The boats moved slowly at first, then picked up speed as the water deepened as they pass a carpet store, a gas station, a restaurant, a hotel.
"It's just stunning," said Ann Vermeer, 49, as she stood near the water's edge.
"It's going to take months and months to clean it up."
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