By GRANT SCHULTE and JOSH FUNK
Associated Press
HAMBURG, Iowa – Workers raced Tuesday to add several feet to a temporary levee that is now the only barrier between the small town of Hamburg and the menace of the rising Missouri River.
Crews from the Army Corps of Engineers planned to increase the levee’s height by three feet. But time was short and the stakes were high: If the levee were to fail, parts of this southwestern Iowa community could be under as much as 10 feet of water within days.
The temporary earthen levee became the last line of defense for Hamburg after the river ruptured two levees in northwest Missouri on Monday, sending torrents of water over rural farmland toward Hamburg and a Missouri resort community downriver.