Midwest Underwater, but Some Rivers Falling

Goldberg said building inspectors and fire-hazard material teams were starting to enter the flooded downtown to assess damage.

The University of Iowa in Iowa City canceled summer classes for at least a week as numerous campus buildings took on water. According to Steve Parrott, director of university relations, school officials will reassess the situation Monday or Tuesday, when the Iowa River is expected to crest.

The University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, the largest hospital in the state, was functioning. The school's art museum was "completely inundated with water," Parrott said, but many of the valuable pieces -- including works by Pablo Picasso and Jackson Pollock -- had been removed in anticipation of the rising river.

Iowa City's mayor announced an overnight curfew to keep people at least 100 yards from the rushing river, which contained raw sewage and other hazards.

Interstate 80, the major east-west artery across the region, was closed for miles in and out of Iowa City, requiring detours hundreds of miles long.

In Des Moines, Public Works Director Bill Stowe said the city had been seeking federal approval to reconstruct the levee that broke as part of a citywide overhaul of levees since Hurricane Katrina.

"The Birdland levee was built in the 1950s and is not at the standards we'd see today," Stowe said.

Des Moines Mayor Frank Cownie said officials did "everything we could over the last few days to shore up that levee, but Mother Nature found a weak spot and took it out."

One evacuee, retired sheriff Bert Smith, sat in a lawn chair at his neighbor's, enjoying the sunshine and staring across the street at his house, which he was barred from entering.

"My wife took the five cats to the south side and my son went to work," said Smith, 68, describing the early-morning evacuation. "I just came over here, and they won't even let me check on things."

But he and neighbor Mike Sheil, a union construction worker, had no complaints.

"From the volunteers to the city, they've done a great job," said Sheil, 55. "In 1993 we had no warning. This time they were ready."