Iowa's capital De Mooines is swamped by floodwater in the region's worst flooding in 15 years. Barack Obama visits flood zone in home state of Illinois. A levee holding back rising floodwaters broke and swamped Iowa's capital on Saturday (June 15) as officials across the U.S. Midwest reinforced levees, helped displaced residents and cleaned up the mess left by the region's worst flooding in 15 years. Iowa was the epicentre of the flooding that swamped Kansas, Missouri, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan, Illinois and Indiana. In Des Moines, Iowa's capital, a levee holding back the Des Moines River broke, sending water rushing into a neighbourhood near downtown. "(After) everything we had done over the last number of days to try to reinforce, shore-up, raise that particular levee, Mother Nature had found a weak spot and had taken that out," said Des Moines Mayor Frank Cownie. In Cedar Rapids, the state's second-largest city, the waters of the swollen Cedar River crested overnight. But...