THE MIDWEST In Iowa and other states, residents muck through damages from storms

Several tornadoes have been reported throughout the Midwest.
INDEPENDENCE, Iowa (AP) -- With so much of her family's belongings covered in dark, greasy mud, it's hard for Amy Hare to know what is lost and what can be salvaged.
The three-bedroom ranch home Hare rents is one of several ravaged by storms in Iowa, which was lashed by a string of 19 tornadoes, hail, high winds and heavy rains over the weekend.
"I know we lost some photographs, Polaroids, of my youngest daughter taken just after she was born," Hare said Monday as she swept water and mud.
On Monday night, Iowa was drenched by yet another wave of powerful thunderstorms, even as residents in this eastern town of 6,000 people grew hopeful that the Malone Creek would recede.
Hit by winds
Severe weather hit elsewhere in the Midwest on Monday, with tornadoes touching down in Oklahoma, Nebraska, Missouri and Kansas.
Hare said water forced its way into the basement through sealed windows, rising nearly to the rafters and leaving dolls, clothes, appliances and photographs coated with a thick film of pungent, sludgelike mud.
"It's just going to be a matter of going through things to know what's gone for good and what we can save," said Hare.
The storms that moved across the state Friday, Saturday and Sunday dumped as much as 9 inches near Ames. Monday night's downpours brought more than 3 inches of rain to some areas.
Gov. Tom Vilsack asked for a federal disaster declaration covering 24 counties. He also granted state disaster declarations Sunday for the same counties, authorizing the state to provide sandbags, pumps, barricades and personnel for traffic control.
In Independence, sandbags were piled around the town's historic business district and residents were pumping water out of basements in downtown buildings near the Wapsipinicon River, which last flooded in 1999.
Tornadoes reported
Elsewhere, four tornadoes were reported Monday evening in or near Chillicothe, Mo., where a hospital said it treated 10 people for minor injuries. Two girls were injured in a trailer home that was picked up by a tornado and dropped onto a car.
A tornado even touched down in eastern New York, destroying a camper and barn in a sparsely populated area about 75 miles southeast of Syracuse.
Saturday storms in Nebraska killed a 73-year-old Hallam woman, injured 37 others, destroyed 158 homes and damaged at least 57 others in Lancaster, Saline, Gage and Cass counties.
"It's just about a total loss," said Millie Schuster, whose possessions were reduced to an heirloom clock, the family Bible and a closet full of clothes.
Several more tornadoes were reported Monday southwest of Hallam in Nuckolls and Thayer counties, including one that took the roof off of a house, destroyed several grain bins and downed power lines, said Steve Carmel, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Hastings. Officials were still surveying the damage.
Fighting rising waters
In the northern Illinois community of Gurnee, residents battled the rising waters of the Des Plaines River on Monday in what threatened to become the town's worst flood in two decades.
The floodwaters forced schools to close for more than 2,000 youngsters, and homes and businesses filled with water, including the Gurnee Community Church. Pumps belched water out a church window, a sign overhead reading, "We've got peace like a river."
The river in Gurnee is expected to crest early Wednesday at 12.7 feet -- 5.7 feet over flood level.
Further south in the Chicago suburb of Des Plaines, authorities were distributing sandbags and preparing fliers alerting residents of the rising water levels, said Dave Niemeyer, Des Plaines' city manager.
The river is expected to crest at 11.2 feet in Des Plaines early Thursday, a record-setting 6.2 feet over the flood stage, the National Weather Service said.