Communities in southern and eastern Iowa have been battling flooding caused by heavy rains. Johnson County’s emergency management director issued a county emergency declaration to allow the county help communities deal with the flash flooding.
The Solon Public Works Department is closely monitoring the levels of a creek near its wasterwater treatment plant and the community also asked for volunteers to help distribute sandbags.
Tom Trump drove a load of sandbags back to his subdivision on the south side of Solon, where a large pool of water is slowly creeping up to his neighbors’ basement windows. “It’s a water retention area, it comes from the other side of the highway, and then into here,” Trump says. He says he had no hesitation in trying to help out his neighbor.
“I guess when I first saw it, my mind started thinking about what do we have to do to fix it,” Trump says. In North Liberty, city officials are diverting storm water from the sewers and into Muddy Creek to avoid straining their wastewater treatment plant which was inundated with the heavy rain.
The National Weather Service says the rain is going to continue today before tapering off. There could be as much as three more inches of rain in some places.