Divers have recovered a body from Mud Creek east of Altoona south of Interstate 80 around 2:30 today. Eleven people and three cars were washed into the water this morning and ten of the eleven passengers were found clinging to trees and logs. The victim’s name has not yet been released.
In Des Moines, police began calling residents living along Four Mile creek urging them to evacuate at two this morning. Steve Perlowski was already awake monitoring the water levels but didn’t seek higher ground until five hours later.
“I came to live here in 1996, 14 years ago and two major floods, some other minor floods never made it into the house and so I was kind of lulled into a kind of complacency that you know, that we were not invulnerable, but didn’t expect this,” Perlowski says. He has this view of the current flooding.
“Two-thousand ten is the mother of all floods,” Perlowksi says. Perlowski now has at least two feet of water in his main level. He just purchased flood insurance in March and says it was probably the best $300 investment he’s ever made.