Thousands of volunteers who spent much of the weekend piling sandbags and salvaging books and paintings at the University of Iowa are anxiously eyeing the swollen river that cuts through their Iowa City campus, hoping the waters that have already flooded more than a dozen buildings won’t submerge any more now that the Iowa River appears to have crested.
On Sunday, campus officials said 16 buildings, including most of the arts campus, were flooded by up to four feet of water. At least seven more buildings were threatened, and many more were without power. Flooding forced officials to shut down the university’s electrical and steam plant early Saturday and switch to emergency backup power.