Small towns suffer big losses as rivers rise

By ALLEN G. BREED
AP National Writer

Even before the Iowa River used this town as a shortcut to the Mississippi, there wasn't much here: A post office, a convenience store, a tavern and a little restaurant.

The largest employer was a pork-and-grain producer called TriOak Foods. The company's towering grain elevator was the tallest structure for miles around.

Then the floodwaters soaking much of the Midwest turned their force on the region's small communities - most with skylines that consist only of a water tower and maybe a couple of church steeples.

As the rivers rise, these modest towns survive because neighbor helps neighbor, and the people reinforcing the levees are business owners, farmers and fellow church members who have lived there for years.

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