Authorities in central Iowa believe a fatal car crash Tuesday involved a horse. Polk County Sheriff’s deputies say the crash happened early Tuesday morning north of Bondurant.

The driver of the car, 53-year-old Kendall Johnson of Rhodes, was killed. The crash wasn’t discovered until Tuesday evening after family members reported Johnson had left for work that morning, but had not been seen since. Investigators were initially confused by the excessive amount of damage to the car, given that it left the road and traveled about 40 yards before coming to rest at the base of a tree.

Then, deputies found a deceased horse in the ditch. Investigators believe Johnson’s car struck the horse, which caused his vehicle to leave the roadway.

A series of electrical explosions knocked out power to part of downtown Des Moines, including the Federal Building, early this morning.

Three explosions in the Court Avenue District blew manhole covers on the street into the air. Witnesses reported flames from the open manholes shot up to 30 feet above street level.

“Around 2:45 this morning we had an underground cable that faulted,” says Tina Potthoff, a spokeswoman for MidAmerican Energy. “We currently have crews on site to make those repairs.”

Power should be restored to most businesses in the area by 10 a.m.

“But there will be some businesses that will be out all day — just a handful, if you will — while we make repairs and replace that electrical system that was damaged,” Potthoff says.

Some witnesses told police they smelled gas, but Potthoff says the explosions were not caused by a natural gas leak.

“We’ve hadcrews out there this morning since the incident happened taking readings in the area and we’ve detected no natural gas in the area,” Potthoff says. “We did not make any evacuations and portions of the road are blocked off as we make repairs, but it is strictly electrical.”

The Federal Building is closed to the public all day, due to the power outage. Both of Iowa’s U.S. senators have offices in the building, although both senators are in Washington, D.C. for senate votes this week. Several federal agencies have staff working out of the Neal Smith Federal Building in Des Moines as well.

A central Iowa woman was killed and two Adair County residents were hurt in a head-on crash early Sunday morning in Dallas County. The Iowa State Patrol says a vehicle driven by 24-year-old Megan Wakeham, of West Des Moines was traveling east in the westbound lanes of Interstate 80 one-mile east of Earlham at around midnight, when it collided head-on with a car driven by 20-year-old Jessie Leeper of Adair.

An SUV driven by 49-year-old Lori Wallace, of Greenfield, was unable to stop in-time and collided with the Leeper’s car. Wakeham died from her injuries.Wallace and Leeper were transported by Stuart EMS and Dallas County EMS to Methodist and Mercy Hospitals in Des Moines, respectively.

By Ric Hanson, KJAN, Atlantic

Some of the heaviest damage from last week’s flooding occurred in rural areas of Iowa – with millions of dollars in damage to gravel roads and bridges. In northeast Iowa, Buchanan County Engineer Brian Keierleber initially estimated water washed over rural roadways in 40 locations across the county.

“Upon getting more detailed information back, we’ve identified 61 places where the water overtopped the road and caused scour problems,” Keierleber said. “The water was significant enough that it crossed over four-lane Highway 20 and washed a semi off the road.”

Two bridges will need replaced in rural Buchanan County, while five others will need repairs. Keierleber doesn’t have a dollar estimate on the damage just yet, but repairing the gravel roads alone will be costly.

“In the 60 locations, each one will require one or more truckloads of rock and that’s going to require a significant amount of money,” Keierleber said. In northwest Iowa, perhaps the worst flooding damage occurred in Cherokee County. David Shanahan, the Cherokee County Engineer, estimates the damage there will exceed $2.4 million.

“We have two bridges that are washed out and two that are going to require significant repair to get them back into service,” Shanahan said. In addition, repairs will be needed around 125 other bridges in Cherokee County due to loss of sediment.

“The biggest problem is (the floodwaters) washed the banks back so far that the channels are now wider than the bridges,” Shanahan said. “Getting back and stabilizing the abutment walls is going to take a lot of time and effort.” The damage to rural roads comes at a time when farmers are rushing to finish spring planting. Some farmers are having to make longer treks to get into their fields.

At the worst point of the flooding in Cherokee County, there were over 30 rural roads closed by barricades. Shanahan said that number of impassable roads is now down to around 12. This has been the wettest spring in Iowa history, with record rainfall totals in both April and May. Sections of Wapello County in southeast Iowa received six inches of rain in one event in April.

Wapello County Engineer Brian Moore said flash flooding from that storm caused at least $500,000 in damage. Last week’s flooding brought more damage. “We had a road wash out behind a bridge and we had a culvert on a (paved road) collapse. We’re probably looking at another $150,000 (in damages) from last week’s rain event,” Moore said. Many county officials in Iowa are now hoping for federal disaster dollars to help cover the bills.

“Budgets are always tight, so we’ll have to maybe cut back on a few things or hopefully we’ll get the FEMA declaration and that will help us with the repairs,” Moore said.