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.

kxan.com

Eldorado, TX (AHN) - State troopers and child welfare officials have taken custody of children living in a West Texas retreat owned by polygamist leader Warren Jeffs.
Authorities served warrants Friday at the 1,700-acre property, located 160 miles northwest of San Antonio, following a complaint to state child welfare investigators.
Marleigh Meisner of Child Protective Services confirmed the small white bus that drove out of the compound accompanied by state troopers was filled with children, but declined to give out numbers. The CPS bus retrieved what appeared to be mostly girls, garbed in the conservative dresses worn by members of the insular group .
Schleicher County Attorney Raymond Loomis Jr. said the operation stemmed from a complaint from one of the girls living in the property. He said the case was being handled by prosecutors in San Angelo.
The ranch, named Yearning For Zion, houses an estimated 150 members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. It has been led by Jeffs since 2002 and is one of several groups that broke away after the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints renounced polygamy in 1890.
Jeffs is imprisoned in Kingman, Ariz., awaiting trial on charges of being an accomplice to four counts of incest and sexual conduct with a minor.
He was sentenced on similar charges in November to two consecutive sentences of five years to life in prison in Utah.

allheadlinenews.com