[False-color satellite imagery of flooding along the Missouri River near Hamburg, Iowa:

“On June 19, 2011, the AHPS reported, the Missouri crested slightly above the record level set for Brownville [Nebraska, about 15 miles downstream from Hamburg] in 1993. The record level was 44.3 feet (13.5 meters), and on June 19, the river briefly reached 44.62 feet (13.60 meters) before receding slightly.”

Hamburg was threatened by a levee breach on June 5, which prompted the evacuation of approximately half of the town’s twelve hundred residents, and the emergency construction of a secondary levee closer to the town.  Fortunately — for the town of Hamburg, that is — another levee breach near Brownville has taken pressure off the secondary levee, and as the waters have dropped a couple feet, the town appears safe, at least for the time being.  Flooding along the Missouri, though, is expected to continue throughout the summer.]

[Floodwaters cover a highway near Hamburg; photograph by Charlie Neibergall/AP.]