UPDATE 1-U.S. Midwest hit with floods, tornado hits camp
(Updates with tornado hitting children's camp)
DES MOINES, Iowa, June 11 (Reuters) - A tornado ripped through a boy scout ranch in Iowa on Wednesday injuring at least 20 people, local officials said -- one of 28 reported in the U.S. Midwest.
Several sources, including a local weather office and a state official, reported four killed at the Little Sioux Boy Scout Ranch near Sioux City in western Iowa, but the Monona County Sheriff's Office would not confirm any fatalities.
Other twisters struck eastern Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa and Minnesota, according to Storm Prediction Center meteorologist David Imy.
The tornadoes were accompanied by baseball-sized hail and vicious winds, and came on top of rampant flooding that has forced hundreds from their homes in Iowa alone.
Iowa Gov. Chet Culver on Wednesday declared 54 of Iowa's 99 counties disaster areas due to damage from the flooding and tornadoes. He said this year's spring deluge is comparable to the disaster of 1993 when the Mississippi River and its tributaries turned parts of the nation's midsection into a gigantic lake.
Culver predicted the damage will run in the "hundreds of millions of dollars."
"We have nine rivers right now across this state, not including the Missouri and the Mississippi, that are above record level or very close to record level," Culver said. "That's all time records."
Heavy rains in Des Moines flooded restaurants and a government building in the business district and water released from a reservoir was expected to swell the Des Moines River that bisects the city.
In Cedar Rapids, some 800 residents were evacuated from their homes on Wednesday.
Donita Dettmer's hilltop home on the edge of Waverly remained dry, though she said she had never before seen the river submerge the adjacent highway.
"We're fairly lucky," Dettmer said, in contrast to scores of neighbors displaced by the flooding.
CROP PRICES SOAR
Corn prices hit a record high as meteorologists predicted another batch of thunderstorms would douse sodden farmland later this week.
"Even if it is drier next week it won't matter now. It's too late to plant corn," said Vic Lespinasse of grainanalyst.com. Continued...
