2 Missouri River levees fail in NW Missouri; sends water into farmland, toward Iowa town
6/13/2011HAMBURG, Iowa — The rising Missouri River has ruptured two levees in northwest Missouri, sending torrents of floodwaters over rural farmland toward the Iowa town of Hamburg and the Missouri resort town of Big Lake.
Both levee failures happened Monday morning.
One levee about five miles south of Hamburg has a hole about 50 feet wide. Water from that break is expected to reach a secondary levee protecting the Hamburg area Tuesday.
Holt County, Mo., officials say the river there has punched a 225-foot-wide hole through a levee about five miles west of Big Lake.
The breach near Hamburg is sending water toward more people. A few hundred of that 1,100-resident town already have evacuated. Only about 30 residents have stayed in the resort town of Big Lake since the river started rising.