Already Flooded Iowa Town Avoids Catastrophe

COLUMBUS JUNCTION, Iowa, June 15 -- Columbus Junction is at the convergence of the Cedar and Iowa rivers, which have wreaked havoc in Cedar Rapids, Iowa City and other points north during a devastating week of flooding in the Midwest. Local officials feared that a "catastrophic levee failure" could swamp the small town with the fury of both rivers.

Such a failure has been averted, with the rivers cresting Sunday and slowly receding. But much of the town is submerged in up to 10 feet of water, and it will take weeks or even months for it to recover.

Columbus Junction has only about 24 hours' worth of water in its water tower, and residents have been ordered not to turn on faucets so that the fire department can get water if needed. The department needed the water Sunday afternoon when a fire broke out in an apartment building on the only main commercial street not submerged.

City officials are supplying bottled water at the local high school, and 50 Iowa National Guardsmen are providing bulk water for washing and flushing.

Columbus Junction is just one of countless small towns and many major cities devastated by flooding across the Midwest in the past week. In Cedar Rapids, it will be weeks before power is restored and many of the 24,000 evacuees can return home. Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin have also been hit hard.

Though Columbus Junction did not suffer a major levee breach, water seeped through levees under railroad tracks and flooded much of the town, along with a racetrack and fairgrounds. The Iowa River crested on this hot and sunny Sunday at 32 feet, well above the 28-foot crest during the historic floods of 1993.

"Now it will take us a week just to get back to that level," Mayor Dan Wilson said.

The town is home to about 2,000 people, including commuters to Iowa City and many immigrant workers drawn by jobs at the nearby Tyson Fresh Meats pork meatpacking plant.

On the main drag of Mexican bakeries, taquerias and cowboy clothing shops, residents gathered to look at floodwaters lapping just yards away. Usually, the Iowa River is about half a mile from this street.

The Tyson plant is closed until at least Thursday, since roads leading to it are flooded.

"We don't get paid when we're not working, but we'll wait it out as long as we have to," said Mario Corado, 24, who came here from Guatemala five years ago to work at the plant.

When A.T. Docks, in his 60s, moved to Columbus Junction from Chicago to work at Tyson in February, "I never thought I'd end up in a sci-fi movie," he said, referring to the 1951 classic "When Worlds Collide" -- in which the collision of planets causes massive floods.