More rains hit flooded Midwest

By Ryan Schlader

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (Reuters) - More storms dumped crop-drowning rains on parts of the U.S. Midwest on Thursday, threatening strained levees and slowing recovery from a multibillion-dollar flood disaster in the heart of the world's biggest grain and food exporter.

In Cedar Rapids, where 4,000 homes were flooded two weeks ago after water spilled over 1,300 city blocks, officials ordered 300 houses demolished. Efforts were under way to determine if some structures in the most flood-prone areas could ever be rebuilt.

The city asked federal disaster officials to send in 500 temporary housing units, most likely mobile homes of the type used following the devastation from Hurricane Katrina.

The National Weather Service said severe thunderstorms in already saturated areas of central Iowa would continue through Friday. Flash flood watches were in place for Des Moines, which saw serious floods two weeks ago, and other Iowa cities.

"A secondary threat of tornadoes is possible over eastern portions of central Iowa Friday afternoon," the NWS said.

Some estimates have indicated the recovery costs for Iowa flooding alone could exceed the $5.7 billion spent after the last major Midwestern floods 15 years ago in 1993.

Flooding from heavy rains that began in late May already have caused more than $6 billion in crop damage in Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Missouri and Nebraska, the American Farm Bureau Federation, the largest U.S. farm group, said.

"I've been farming for 40 years now and this is probably the worst I've seen as trying to get a crop in the ground," said Gorin, Missouri, farmer Kenny McNamar. "It's really going to put a hurt on a lot of people."

Fears that as much as 5 million acres of corn and soybeans have been lost due to the flooding pushed corn and livestock prices to record highs last week.

On Thursday, Chicago Board of Trade corn for July 2009 delivery set another record high at $8.22 a bushel, more than double the 40-year average for corn prices. Corn is the main feed for meat animals, main source for ethanol fuel, and used in hundreds of other food and industrial products.

Iowa officials said this week that at least 2.5 million acres

of corn and soybeans in Iowa, well above 10 percent of planted acreage in the top U.S. producing state for those crops, needs to be replanted. But it is too late in the season for good yields on replantings.

"It's a bad situation. You can't do anything," said Missouri farmer Jim Collins, whose 3,000 acres of corn and soybeans sit about 50 miles west of the Mississippi River. "We'll just have to try to collect on our insurance."

INFLATION JITTERS

Worries about short supplies of basic food and feedstuffs have set off fresh alarms about rising world food price inflation even as oil and energy costs also set records.