A flag is placed in the foundation of a flattened home day after a tornado devastated the town of Moore, Oklahoma, on the outskirts of Oklahoma City May 21, 2013. Rescuers went building to building in search of victims and thousands of survivors were homeless on Tuesday after a massive tornado tore through the Oklahoma City suburb, wiping out whole blocks of homes and killing at least 24 people. (REUTERS/Adrees Latif)

KCRG-TV9 and WMT Radio are hosting a telethon Wednesday night from 5 to 7 p.m. to help the victims of the Oklahoma tornadoes.

The event is called “Help Moore,” and the proceeds will benefit the American Red Cross Disaster Fund. WMT’s Bob Bruce Radio Experience will broadcast live from the TV9 studios.

Red Cross volunteers along with KCRG-TV9 and WMT staff will be helping with the telethon.

Rescue workers with sniffer dogs and searchlights picked through the wreckage of the massive tornado to ensure no survivors remained buried in the rubble of primary schools, houses and buildings in Moore, Okla.

The massive tornado on Monday afternoon flattened entire blocks of the town, killed at least 24 people and injured about 240.

But as dawn approached on Wednesday, officials were increasingly confident that everyone caught in the disaster had been accounted for, despite initial fears that the twister had claimed the lives of more than 90 people.

Jerry Lojka, spokesman for Oklahoma Emergency Management, said search-and-rescue dog teams would search for anybody trapped under the rubble, but that attention would also be focused on a huge cleanup job.

“They will continue the searches of areas to be sure nothing is overlooked,” he said. “There’s going to be more of a transition to recovery.”

More than 1,000 people had already registered for assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, which sent hundreds of workers to Oklahoma to help with the recovery.

Reuters contributed to this story.

A storm siren stands at the intersection of A Avenue and First Street NW in Cedar Rapids Wednesday, May 15, 2013. (Brian Ray/The Gazette)

Two years after Johnson County emergency managers changed their outdoor siren policy, people continue to call 911 after the sirens are activated.

Late Sunday night dispatchers received around 50 calls in a two-hour period, many from confused residents after the sirens were activated county-wide at 11 p.m.

The outdoor siren system in Johnson County is activated for any storm that threatens winds of 70 mph or greater, or produces golf-ball sized hail.

“Calls to 911 can tie up our dispatchers from handling real emergencies,” said Tom Jones, executive director of the Johnson County Joint Emergency Communications Center.

Dispatchers expect more calls the next time severe weather strikes in Johnson County.

“People should go indoors, go in the basement and get information from local media,” Jones said.

A rescuer searches the wreckage of a car after a tornado struck Moore, Oklahoma, May 20, 2013. A 2-mile-wide tornado tore through the Oklahoma City suburb of Moore on Monday, destroying entire tracts of homes, piling cars atop one another, and trapping two dozen school children beneath rubble. (REUTERS/Gene Blevins)

Officials in Oklahoma City said on Tuesday that 24 bodies were recovered after a devastating tornado tore through Moore, Oklahoma, a sharp decline from the 51 deaths they previously reported.

“We have got good news. The number right now is 24,” said Amy Elliott, chief administrative officer at the Oklahoma City Medical Examiner’s Office. The prior figure of 51 dead may have included some double-reported casualties, Elliott said.

“There was a lot of chaos,” Elliott said.

She cautioned that additional bodies could yet be recovered from the rubble.

All but three of the bodies that have been recovered have been identified and are being returned to their families, Elliott said.

Several rounds of severe weather moved through Iowa Sunday producing large hail, strong winds and reports of several tornadoes.

Tree damage was been reported across the city of Cedar Rapids, several roads were blocked by trees and other debris. There were reports of damage Benton, Linn, Jones and Delaware Counties caused by the storms Sunday night.

Several thousand Alliant Energy customers lost power as the storms moved through Eastern Iowa late Sunday evening. More than 40,000 customers were without power, including 27,000 in Linn County alone.

Read more at KCRG.com

CEDAR RAPIDS – Heavy rain over 48 hours has taxed the city’s sanitary sewer system and its wastewater treatment facility, forcing the city to send partially treated wastewater into the Cedar River, Steve Hershner, the city’s utilities director, reported Thursday afternoon.

In addition, Hershner said that stormwater has seeped into the city’s sanitary sewer system at certain spots in the city, which has required the city to pump effluent out of the sanitary sewer system and into the storm sewer system, sending it directly into waterways and ultimately the Cedar River.

At some spots along Indian Creek, stormwater has gotten into the sanitary sewer system, filling it up and forcing its way out of manhole covers and onto the ground, he said.

As required, the city has notified the Iowa Department of Natural Resources of the bypasses at the treatment plant and at spots in the sewer system.

Hershner predicted that the problems would end on Friday or Saturday with a reduction in the amount of rain.

All the wastewater entering the city’s sewage treatment plant at Bertram Road and Highway 13 is undergoing primary and secondary treatment, just not final treatment and disinfection, he added.

Craig Hanson, the city’s public works maintenance manager, reported Thursday that about 30 homes experienced sewer backups in basements during the heavy rain, which he characterized as a once-in-every-10-year rain.

IOWA CITY – The Iowa City area went from talking about a drought to talking about Coralville Lake levels this week in as fast as you can say “downpour.”

This week’s deluge – a city-monitored rain gauge in North Liberty recorded 8.28 inches of rain over 28 hours – led the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on Thursday to reduce outflow at Coralville Lake, the man-made reservoir it oversees.

That, in turn, caused the lake’s water level to rise because less water is leaving through the dam.  That’s not to suggest serious flooding is imminent, but local officials are keeping an eye on the situation.

“I don’t want to overdramatize it, but it makes us a little nervous” to see the lake projections that high, said Dave Wilson, Johnson County’s Emergency Management coordinator.

The corps reduced the lake’s outflow from 4,050 cubic feet per second to 1,000 cfs. The lake’s elevation went from 679 feet above sea level, which is normal for this time of year, to 686 feet as of 3 p.m.

It is projected to crest at nearly 699 feet on April 24 before slowly dropping. The dam’s emergency spillway, which has only been topped in the floods of 1993 and 2008, is at 712 feet.

Dee Goldman, Coralville Lake operations manager, said for now there is no need to worry about serious flooding this summer.

“As long as you don’t have (heavy rainfall) occurring in rapid succession, there’s not any big concerns at this point in time,” he said.

The corps reduced outflow in cooperation with local authorities, Wilson said, calling it “absolutely the best thing to do” to relieve pressure on creeks and the Iowa River that rose quickly Wednesday.

Flash flooding along the Iowa River caused the closure of a portion of Iowa City’s busy Dubuque Street for part of Thursday. In the same area, there was a mudslide Wednesday night behind the University of Iowa’s Mayflower dormitory.

More than two dozen Johnson County roads were closed at some point Thursday.

No major damage was reported, but many basements flooded, officials said.

Iowa City, Coralville and North Liberty all bypassed their wastewater systems because their treatment plants were operating at full capacity, sending untreated or partially treated wastewater into the Iowa River and creeks. The flow into Iowa City’s plant was the most ever seen, Public Works Director Rick Fosse said.

Solon’s wastewater treatment plant was threatened by floodwaters Wednesday, but sandbagging and less intense rain Wednesday night into Thursday kept it dry, Wilson said.

Fosse said he’s heard some comparisons made between this week and the record flooding of 2008. But the 2008 flood was primarily caused by heavy rain and snow melt upstream. This is more like 1993, he said, which saw heavy local rains.

No one was prepared to predict another major flood. If there was a repeated pattern of heavy rain, then maybe there would be some concern.

“But it’s anybody guess whether that will occur,” Fosse said.

Coralville City Engineer Dan Holderness said dry weather, getting the local creeks lower and returning Coralville Lake’s outflow to normal is the key.

“What will tell the tale is if it continues to keep raining,” he said.

Goldman said getting outflow back up depends on how fast the water recedes downstream. He added it rained this week over the entire watershed, which exacerbates the problem.

Iowa Homeland Security and Emergency Management Division officials said they sent pumps to Johnson, Cedar, Clinton, Jones and Scott counties to aid in flood-fighting efforts.

The Iowa Department of Transportation sent sand to the Iowa Medical Classification Center in Coralville where inmates will fill sandbags.

Gov. Terry Branstad is in China this week. Spokesman Tim Albrecht said the governor has the sole authority to declare a disaster and can do so over the phone if necessary.

Goldman said it was odd to go from talking about a drought for the past year to flooding.

“We’re really seeing some strange weather patterns any more.”

Mike Wiser of the Gazette-Lee Des Moines Bureau contributed to this report

HESCO barriers along the eastern edge of the parking lot at Mayflower dorm on the University of Iowa campus. (Mark Carlson / KCRG-TV9 and The Gazette)

UPDATE: University of Iowa officials said today they believe the hill behind Mayflower Residence Hall is stable, after a mudslide damaged five cars in the Mayflower parking lot late last night.

Structural engineers assessed the hillside and the bluff today and the initial preliminary report is that the hill is stable, UI Spokesman Tom Moore said.

“There appears to be no concern about the stability of the hillside itself,” he said.

It appears that the mudslide was the result of soil and construction debris that had been at the top of the bluff that was washed down the side of the hill into the Mayflower parking lot after heavy rain Wednesday, Moore said.

“It was something that came from the top, not an erosion of the hill,” he said. “It appears that the hillside itself was not affected, that there was no collapse of the bluff, but rather it was a washing of soil and debris down the hillside.”

A group of cars sit pushed together after a mudslide that filled the parking lot of the University of Iowa's Mayflower residence hall Thursday, April 18, 2013. The slide was caused by heavy rains that continue to fall around Eastern Iowa. (Brian Ray/The Gazette)

The hillside and bluff behind Mayflower — to the east — is not UI property, Moore said. Mayflower is on North Dubuque Street, across from City Park.

UI officials received reports that five cars were damaged in the mudslide, which happened at about 11:30 p.m. Wednesday. The damage estimates are not yet known, he said.

There are two parking lots behind Mayflower, and the mudslide was on the far eastern edge of the south lot. The mudslide was perhaps 40 feet to 50 feet away from the building, and there was never any consideration of evacuating Mayflower, Moore said.

The mud and debris were removed, and UI workers today placed HESCO barriers along the eastern edge of the parking lot to prevent any additional mud or soil that may still be washed down the hill from getting into the parking lot, Moore said.

“It’s primarily a housekeeping action to keep the lot clear and clean,” he said.

There are still cars in the lot, but students who live at Mayflower have been advised not to use the parking lot behind the building. They’ve been offered alternate parking in the Hancher Auditorium lot, Moore said.

IOWA CITY – Heavy rain caused flash flooding across southeastern Iowa on Wednesday, leading to an “emergency” declaration in Johnson County.

1-3″ of rain fell across areas along and south of Highway 30 according to KCRG-TV9 Meteorologist Joe Winters.

Johnson County Emergency Management Coordinator Dave Wilson said that his office issued a county emergency disaster declaration. The order allows county resources to be used by communities in Johnson County. Wilson said they are especially concerned about the situation in Solon and it’s waste water treatment plant. The plant is near a creek and additional heavy rain is expected.

Forty-six year old Dawn Bearce has lived in her condo in Solon for a little over three years, but she’s never seen torrential rain and flooding like what she saw Wednesday afternoon.

Bearce, a Solon resident who joined in to help at least 30 other volunteers to sandbag water-logged areas of Solon yesterday, said she left work in fear that the basement unit of her condo was going to flood.

Just a few feet from the front stoop of her condominium on Duchess Drive, a pond had formed in the cul-de-sac from the hours of rain that blew through Johnson County on Wednesday. Behind her house, a real pond — one that had been there all along — was overflowing and creeping towards the bay windows of her building.

“I mean, we have never had rain this bad before,” Bearce said, as she stood sopping wet at the Solon Public Works building, just a mere two blocks from her condo. “When I moved in I asked if I needed flood protection and they said it had never flooded.”

As the rain continued to come down, volunteers continued to pack sand bags and load them on to truck to be dispersed throughout neighborhoods and other areas of Solon that were flooding. Dave Wilson, Johnson County Emergency Management Coordinator, said volunteers hadn’t needed to use the flood protection since 2008 — one of the worst flooding incidents in eastern Iowa to date.

Tom Trump, another resident on Duchess Drive, said he was grateful for how quickly people — family, friends, neighbors — jumped in to help out.

“Some of the people who live here had kids in school so they pulled them out to help too,” Trump said. “They’re really lifesavers, when we needed help to make sandbags they were here and got it done right quick.”

Back in Iowa City, the New Pioneer Co-op, which sits dangerously close to Ralston Creek on South Van Buren Street, was also making preparations as the creek appeared to crest. The store closed down at noon for about an hour on Wednesday, as staff worked to prepare the store for flooding.

“Basically what happens is we take a very close look at potential future precipitation before we make a judgement call like that,” said Keegan Doremus, deli manager at the Iowa City store. “And there is actually a ratio we use. If rainfall stays at 1 inch per hour (in the creek) then waters will continue to flow, if it exceeds that that’s when we start to see flooding problems.”

Ultimately, the store decided to take a precautionary measure and put up flood barriers. A few sandbags could also be spotted just outside the door on Wednesday afternoon. Doremus said this was the first time the flood gates had to be used so far this year, adding the last time was probably sometime last summer.

Those with the Co-op have wanted to re-locate the Iowa City store for some time, largely due to concerns that the grocery store currently rests in a flood plain. Jenifer Angerer, marketing manager at New Pioneer Co-op, said the store didn’t take on any water Wednesday afternoon, adding the staff goes through frequent flood drills to make sure employees are prepared to secure it in case of an emergency.

“One of our primary goals is to get the Iowa City store out of a flood zone,” Angerer said. “Because we are in a flood plain there are limitations for how much we can invest in the building itself, just based on county regulations. We might be okay and under the cost threshold if we had a couple of inches, but if we had more than that — where it was taking out coolers and every electrical equipment — we would exceed the cost barrier and we wouldn’t be able to repair that building. We would have to start over somewhere else.”

Angerer said the store has most recently decided to look into opening a third location, while protecting the Iowa City store as best they can. 

“It’s always a thing we worry and watch and we hope for the best until we can relocate our tiny store,” Angerer said.

Meanwhile, in North Liberty, the influx of storm water increased the flow through North Liberty’s sewer system by nearly 400 percent, the city said.

Officials will temporarily bypass its normal sewer collection process Wednesday evening to protect homes from sewer backup. The move, which has been approved by the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, will allow the storm water to enter Muddy Creek and continue downstream instead of bottle-necking at the city’s treatment plant.

When the threat to homes and other property has subsided, North Liberty will resume its normal collection. Residents can help reduce the load on the sewer system by lowering their water usage tonight.

Traffic makes its way though high water covering Dubuque Street near the Grace Community Church Wednesday, April 17, 2013 in North Liberty. Heavy rains have caused flash flooding around the area. (Brian Ray/The Gazette)

UPDATE: City crews here will be keeping an eye on the flash-flood-prone Indian Creek and Prairie Creek through the night, Craig Hanson, the city’s public works maintenance manager, said early last evening.

“The creeks are in their banks for now,” Hanson said.

At midafternoon Wednesday, city crews moved one of the city’s temporary flood-protection systems — called tiger dams — to two spots along Indian Creek, the Sun Valley neighborhood and the area at Sydney Street and 32nd Street Drive SE.

Hanson said heavy rainfall to the north of the city and examples of flash flooding in Iowa City on Wednesday prompted him to go to the “next level of preparations” in the city’s updated flood-response plan and get the tiger dams into spots where they may be needed.

The tiger dams will be taken off a truck, filled with water and connected side by side to provide a few feet of flood protection if Indian Creek begins to flood.

“It is good so far,” Hanson said last evening. “It will depend on the rain tonight.”

If Boyson Road in Marion floods, the creek will crest at Sun Valley about six hours later, he said.

Hanson said Prairie Creek acts a little more like a river and doesn’t rise as fast as Indian Creek. He said more rain just to the west of the city may force Prairie Creek over its banks on Thursday. This normally impacts J Street SW near Hawkeye Downs Road SW, he said.

The city also has moved pumps to the Sun Valley neighborhood, has other pumps at the ready and was deploying filled sandbags at spots in the city.

As for the Cedar River in Cedar Rapids, at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, the National Weather Service’s Advanced Hydrologic Prediction Service was reporting that the Cedar River at Cedar Rapids would reach 8.95 feet at noon on Friday.

Otis Road SE is among the first places in the city to take on water, and that occurs when the river reaches about 9.5 feet, according to the National Weather Service’s prediction website.

The river reached 31.12 feet in the city’s historic 2008 flood.

Get more details on Eastern Iowa flooding issues at KCRG.com

A downed power pole occupies the intersection of Washington and Governor Streets near the Alpha Chi Omega sorority house Friday, April 14, 2006 in Iowa City after a tornado tore through the area. (The Gazette)

When Johnson County tested its outdoor warning system last week as part of National Severe Weather week, about 15 sirens failed to activate when they should have.

Officials with the Johnson County Division of Emergency Management said a software upgrade the week prior is to blame for the sirens’ failure to sound right away using the activation system.

The failure forced Johnson County to use its backup system, according to Johnson County Emergency Coordinator Dave C. Wilson. Technicians believe they have resolved the problem, according to a news release, but the county will resume testing this week to be sure.

Outdoor siren tests normally occur on the first Wednesday of every month, but Johnson County had planned to skip the test this week because of last week’s test. Due to the failure, however, sirens will be tested at 10 a.m. Wednesday, according to the news release.

Tests can be cancelled in extreme weather conditions or if there is severe weather – to avoid confusion between a test and a real emergency.

The outdoor warning system aims to alert the public of a tornado warning, which sounds like a steady tone, or an attack, which sounds like a wavering tone. There are three criteria needed to activate the sirens for tornadoes: the National Weather Service has issued a tornado warning for the area, a county trained and certified weather spotter reports a tornado, or a tornado is reported by a local public safety official.

Johnson County can activate all of the sirens at once or just the sirens in one or more of the five siren zones.