Flash Flood — Allamakee, Iowa

2013-06-22 to 2013-06-23 · near Lansing, Allamakee, Iowa

Event narrative

Mudslides occurred over the eastern section of the county from Lansing to north of Harpers Ferry covering portions of County Road X52. Other flash flooding occurred over much of the county. A campground in the Yellow River State Forest had to be evacuated with 80 campers moved to community building in Harpers Ferry. No injuries occurred, but one car was swept away by flood waters on Little Paint Creek. In Waukon, a number of businesses had water up to two feet deep in them with basements completely filled with water. The flooding also caused the utility company to shut off natural gas service to about 60 customers to prevent the possibility of gas leaks to appliances that could have been submerged and pilot lights extinguished. Homes in the Lansing area were damaged by the mudslides with a least one home knocked off its foundation and evacuations of other homes were required along Wall Street.

Wider weather episode

For the second night in a row, thunderstorms with very heavy rain rolled across northeast Iowa producing widespread flash flooding during the evening of June 22nd. At least three rounds of thunderstorms moved across the area dumping another 3 to 4 inches of rain on ground that was saturated from heavy rains that fell less than 24 hours before. Numerous mudslides occurred across Allamakee County, a campground had be evacuated near Bluffton (Winneshiek County) and water along the Upper Iowa River closed several roads in Howard County. Officials also had to evacuate around 80 people from a campground south of Harpers Ferry (Allamakee County). With the repeated episodes of severe weather with flash flooding, the Governor of the State of Iowa declared disaster proclamations for Allamakee, Chickasaw, Clayton, Fayette, Floyd, Mitchell and Winneshiek Counties. FEMA declared a federal disaster area for the following counties: Allamakee, Clayton and Winneshiek.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (43.3644, -91.2195)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 457696. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.