By Oren Dorell and Judy Keen
USA Today
Floods wreak havoc on Wisconsin, Indiana

IOWA CITY, Iowa — Students piled sandbags along the Iowa River on Tuesday to spare their university campus from floods that threaten to be worse than the devastating flooding that struck the Plains states 15 years ago.

Water begins spilling over the emergency spillway at Saylorville Lake near Johnston, Iowa, in the early morning hours Wednesday,(AP Photo/Kevin Sanders)

Sandbag and concrete barriers along the Iowa River were all that stood between the water and the University of Iowa in Iowa City.

"It''s truckload after truckload of sandbags," university groundskeeper Joel Bishop said. "Dump trucks, cement trucks, you name it. We''re working quickly."

In Waterloo, fast-moving water swept away a railroad bridge used to transport tractors from a John Deere factory to Cedar Rapids. The water also forced the city to shut its downtown and close five bridges.

Levee breaks in southeastern Illinois flooded 50 to 75 square miles of farmland along the Embarras River. Northeast of Lawrenceville, families were forced to leave their homes, said Lawrence County Sheriff Russell Adams. He said water was up to the roofs of some homes.

In Elnora, Ind., about 100 miles southwest of Indianapolis, most residents had already abandoned their homes. Remaining residents watched as the White River creeped upward.

In Cedar Falls, Iowa, officials prepared to have residents and downtown business owners pull out as the Cedar River threatened to spill over a levee.

The Cedar River in Cedar Falls was expected to crest at a record 103 feet overnight, 15 feet above flood stage and equal to the height of the town''s levees, said hydrologist Ben Luna of the National Weather Service''s North Central River Forecast Center in Chanhassen, Minn.

Iowa City posted an urgent call for sandbaggers on its website. The Army Corps of Engineers warned that the Coralville Reservoir was 5 inches from its spillways, which it could reach today.

A pump pulls sewage from a storm sewer as water from the Cedar River continues to rise Wednesday in Vinton, Iowa. (AP Photo/Steve Pope)

The forecast calls for more rain; 3 to 5 inches is expected between today and Friday, said Bruce Terry, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service. "A few inches is a lot when you''re already flooding," he said.

In 1993, floods between April and October damaged or destroyed 55,000 homes in the Midwest. Fifty people died, hundreds of levees failed and thousands of people were out of their homes for months.

In Wisconsin, the state patrol warned that Phantom Lake Dam, near the town of Mukwonago, was in danger of failing and ordered a state highway closed, said Mike Goetzman, spokesman for the Wisconsin Emergency Operations Center.

Hundreds of small dams in southern Wisconsin have been topped as rivers crested in some areas and are rising, Goetzman said.

Along the Mississippi River, the National Weather Service predicted crests of 10 feet above flood stage over the next two weeks. Most towns are protected by levees.

"This is major flooding," weather service hydrologist Karl Sieczynski said.

Contributing: Will Higgins and Dan McFeely of The Indianapolis Star; Grant Schulte of The Des Moines Register; and the Associated Press

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