Bloomfield building collapses in storm

Heavy rain and wind that swept through earlier today are blamed for property damage in southern Iowa. Bloomfield Police Chief Shawn Armstrong says a building in the northeast corner of the town square “fell” victim to the storm. It had burned, about 20 years ago, and someone recently bought the property planning to improve it. But a little after 11 this morning a heavy storm came through with high winds and rain, and the building collapsed. While the structure had been empty and nobody was inside, the police chief says it still made quite a mess. The old building collapsed, and all the bricks and debris from it blocked off the nearby highway as well as another of the city streets. The chief says the building wasn’t in good shape but someone apparently thought it showed enough promise that they’d made a plan to try and rebuild it…till today. There’s at least one estimate that the community got more than an inch of rain in fifteen minutes, and travelers report that roads and streets were swamped for a time while the storm went through.