The Cedar River continues to rise in Waterloo and Cedar Falls, where record flood levels are occurring.
At 6:45 this morning, the river level in Cedar Falls was already more than a foot above 1999’s record 98-foot crest and forecasters expect the river to rise to 100-feet early tomorrow morning.
The flooding has closed all ramps of the U.S. Highway 218/Iowa Highway 57 interchange — the major thoroughfare between Waterloo and Cedar Falls. The rising water forced has forced several evacuations in the last 24 hours. Among them, residents of a mobile home park on the north side of Cedar Falls and others living in homes along a creek on the city’s south side.
Upstream in Waverly, flood waters have inundated much of the city. Rescuers are in the process of evacuating several residents who are stranded in their homes on the city’s south side. In Waterloo, about 40 homes on San Souci Island — adjacent to the National Cattle Congress Fairgrounds — were evacuated overnight when a sandbag levee along the Cedar broke.
Forecasters expect the river in Waterloo to crest about a foot above its 1961 record level of 21.86 feet late tonight.