CHICAGO - Heavy thunderstorms flooded portions of the central United States again on Friday, knocking out the water supply in one Iowa city and disrupting a major transcontinental highway.
CHICAGO - Heavy thunderstorms flooded portions of the central United States again on Friday, knocking out the water supply in one Iowa city and disrupting a major transcontinental highway.
As much as a foot of rain fell in central Iowa during the night and flood warnings were posted for areas from northeast Kansas to northern Illinois.
Thunderstorms have raked the same sections of the Midwest for nearly a week, repeatedly dousing some areas and saturating the ground. At least 13 deaths have been blamed on the storms.
Officials in Ottumwa, a town of 25,000 in southeastern Iowa, declared an emergency on Friday after sewage backed up into the water treatment plant and it had to be shut down.
They said the city would run out of potable water later in the day and it may be 36 hours before it can be restored. Restaurants were ordered closed and plants closed.
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In the Chicago area, where a storm on Thursday hit with wind gusts as high as 80 miles per hour, more than a quarter million homes and businesses were still without electricity on Friday morning, according to Exelon Corp's Commonwealth Edison.
High water forced Indiana officials to close the eastbound lanes of Interstate 80, a major east-west transcontinental highway. Many rural and secondary roads were under water across the region, though the situation in Ohio was improving.
Floodwaters had begun to recede in the worst-hit towns and communities but rivers remained above flood levels and 17 highways were still under water, the Ohio Emergency Management Agency said.
Thousands of Ohioans were still in shelters, including between 500 and 1,000 residents of Findlay, where waist-deep waters submerged the downtown and many neighborhoods through much of the week.
Officials urged residents to be cautious about pumping out water from basements too quickly, warning that the pressure from soaked soil surrounding buildings may cause foundations to collapse if water is pumped out too quickly.
MORE RAIN EXPECTED
Weather forecasts show a continued chance of rain for several days, while temperatures have soared to more than 90 degrees Fahrenheit in much of the state.
Public schools in Cincinnati were closed for the second straight day due to the heat, expected to hit 100 degrees Fahrenheit on Friday. Indianapolis schools cut classes to a half day for the second day because of the heat.
Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp. spokesman Steve Forsberg said storms caused a power outage at its key rail yard in Galesburg in western Illinois on Thursday, slowing operations. Power was back up on Friday.
"It just causes delays of a few additional hours in the schedule and that's what we've been advising customers is that as a result of the storms that move through shipments may experience delays of additional eight hours or so," he said.
United Parcel Service spokesman Norman Black said the package delivery company has seen some "localized effects and we've seen a little bit of that where we've had to change some route but nothing of any consequence."
Union Pacific Corp. spokeswoman Kathryn Blackwell said the biggest U.S. railroad had some problems in the Chicago area.
"We have 13 trains held due to weather. We have approximately 45 crossings out due to lack of power at those rails and we're getting generators in place to be able to operate those crossings," she said.
(Additional reporting by Eileen O'Grady in Houston, Andrea Hopkins in Cincinnati and Ben Klayman and Karen Pierog in Chicago)
© Reuters 2007. All rights reserved.
