Rivers will keep rising, and more storms may be coming to the Midwest on Tuesday. Temperatures will also be dangerously high, and the area is still dealing with the effects of the flooding.
About 31 million people could be affected by bad weather this evening. In some parts of Missouri, Iowa, Illinois, and Minnesota, it could rain up to 2 inches per hour.
The National Weather Service said that storms on Tuesday morning could bring hail bigger than 2 inches, winds of more than 60 mph, and even a few tornadoes.
It is known that water has killed at least two people.
Many places along the Des Moines River Basin have set records because of the floods. For example, the surge at Estherville, Iowa, was 17.14 feet as of 3:20 p.m. Monday and was expected to go up even more, according to the agency.
Heavy rain and flooding caused a train bridge between Sioux City, Iowa, and North Sioux City, South Dakota, to fall into the Big Sioux River on Sunday night. On Tuesday afternoon, officials said that the river’s water level had begun to drop.
Amy Gettner from Sioux City said she saw the hole in the bridge while getting ready for work early Monday morning.
She told NBC’s “TODAY” show, “I knew that wasn’t a good sign.”
Rich Gettner, her husband, said he knows their house will get “extensive” damage since the water got as high as their stoop.
“All the flooring’s probably gonna be ruined,” he stated. “Anything that I wasn’t able to get up off the floor.”
When asked about the damage, the couple said they had no idea the area would flood and that it is “hard to see.”
Kim Woods, another woman, said she and her husband had to run away in the middle of the night.
“We literally drove through everybody’s yard,” she told me. “That was the only way out.”
A news gathering in Sioux City on Tuesday afternoon said that water has damaged about 50 homes between Florence Avenue and River Drive South. People can go back to their homes, except for those who live in the damaged area.
People who live in Correctionville and Smithland in Woodbury County, Iowa, are still being asked to leave their homes voluntarily. The county sheriff’s office shared video footage that showed streets that were totally flooded and water almost covering a city sign.
There is major flooding in more than 20 river areas, and 29 more are expected to become major flooding. The river will stay high until the end of the week while the water flows downstream. But heavy rain is coming back on Thursday and Friday, which could cause more floods along rivers that haven’t had a chance to go down yet.
Almost 3 million people have been affected so far in South Dakota, Minnesota, and Iowa. On Tuesday morning, President Joe Biden declared these three states to be in a major disaster and promised government aid to help state, local, and tribal recovery efforts.
The help would go to “areas affected by severe storms, flooding, straight-line winds, and tornadoes beginning on June 16, 2024, and continuing,” the White House said.
From Tuesday on, there is a small to moderate chance that more heavy rain will cause more flash floods. The middle Mississippi Valley is under a slight risk warning.
In Iowa, the Sioux City Railroad Museum shared photos on Facebook of displays that were underwater. Pics taken by a drone showed that McCook Lake, which is west of Sioux City, had overflowed its banks, turning the streets around it into rivers.
On Monday, damage was done to a dam in Minnesota. Local officials said the dam was likely to fall soon, but no one has been told to leave the area.
Temperatures in the upper 90s, and probably more than 100 degrees in some places, are expected over the central Plains and the Mississippi Valley, and they will spread to most of the Lower 48 states. This will make things even worse in some areas.
From the Rockies and Plains to the Mid-Atlantic and Florida, about 70 million people are on high watch.
The hottest day is expected to be Wednesday in the area from Washington, D.C., to Boston. Other parts of the country, like the Midwest and South, will still have high temperatures all week.
It will be 11 degrees warmer than usual this June in Las Vegas, making it the warmest June ever recorded there. A warning about too much heat is also out for parts of Los Angeles County that are desert.