SPENCER, Iowa (WHO) — Travel in northwest Iowa is borderline dangerous Sunday morning as roads are closed with high water levels.
In Spencer, all the roads in and out of the town were closed on Sunday morning. On Grand Avenue in town you could see cars attempting to cross the water-covered pavement and the south end of town is worse.
Community members gathered on the street and talked with WHO 13’s Roger Riley. A lot of people have no phone service or internet signal to be able to contact family members to let them know that they are okay. Some residents were supposed to work but they are not sure with no way to communicate and a lot of roads blocked off.
“Kind of been hard I’ve been out here since probably 8:30 yesterday morning and it was pretty bad,” said one Spencer woman. “Probably around 10 o’clock I witnessed this elderly lady drive through and get stuck and by the time me and two other people walks out there it was waist deep and she didn’t want to get out. She wanted to wait for people to come and it just has been horrible no service, nothing not able to call anybody. My basement is ankle-deep with water right now it’s just been really hard.”
“We’ve never had this before and we’ve lived here for a number of years but never had rain like this at all and the backup like this,” said another Spencer woman. “Never had water in our basement ever.”
The city of Spencer has set up two shelters, one on the north side and one on the south side of town.