DES MOINES (AP) - An Iowa Homeland Security official confirmed four deaths after a tornado hit a western Iowa Boy Scout camp.
A dispatcher with the Harrison County sheriff's department in Iowa said first responders are at the camp and more are en route.
The Little Sioux Scout Ranch is located in rural western Iowa, about one hour north of Omaha, Neb.
Meanwhile, residents were ordered to evacuate low-lying sections of towns along the overflowing Cedar River today, and communities along the Mississippi River were warned that new rainfall would boost their expected flood crests.
Officials in Wisconsin, where this month's rainfall is approaching a record, planned to drain water from one reservoir to ease pressure on a dam, and were monitoring dams elsewhere in the state. High water in Indiana burst a levee today and flooded a vast stretch of farmland.
A new wave of rain showers spread across parts of Iowa today, including some flood-threatened areas. The rain came as a band of storms rippled across the northern Plains.
A sandbagged levee prevented the Cedar River from flooding Cedar Falls today, but officials asked for extra volunteers to help shore it up. Just downstream along the Cedar River, the neighboring city of Waterloo ordered a mandatory evacuation of some neighborhoods, not because of the river but because the ground was saturated and pumping stations couldn't keep up, officials said.
To the southeast in Cedar Rapids, more than 200 residents of a neighborhood near the river were told to seek higher ground.
In Vinton, electricity was cut this morning when rising water affected the city's municipal power plant, said Steve Meyer, the assistant emergency operations center manager. He said a 15-block area near the river had already been evacuated.
“The water is at least 3 feet deep. It's still coming up,” he said of the town, home of about 5,000 people between Cedar Falls and Cedar Rapids.

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