Heavy rain Saturday morning caused the roof of a Mason City store to collapse and resulted in the rescue of three teens trapped under a flooded-out underpass. A portion of the roof in the southeast area of the Walmart building near the loading dock collapsed during the heavy rain.
Mason City Fire Chief Bob Platts says firefighters were dispatched shortly after 8:15 A.M., and on arrival they found an employee was trapped inside a semi-trailer and helped him out of it. The man was not injured. Firefighters also discovered a gas leak and shut off gas to the building.
A structural engineer was brought in to assess the store and store officials were hoping to re-open the store sometime today. Three boys were rescued from a car that tried to go through a flooded out underpass on U.S. Highway 65 between 8th and 10th Streets south. Blake Cooper was approaching the underpass from the south when he saw two cars submerged in the water.
Cooper parked his truck to block other traffic from going through and then went into the water to see if anybody was in the cars. One car was empty but three boys were in the other vehicle and Cooper was able to get them safely out of the car.
(Reporting by Bob Fisher, KRIB, Mason City)