Deadly Storms Flood Midwest

(CNN) — Heavy rains continued to pound the American Midwest on Sunday, flooding towns from Iowa to Michigan and threatening levees as lakes and rivers swelled.

At least five people were reported killed.

Lightning struck a pavilion at a Connecticut state park, killing one person and injuring four, state environmental spokesman Dennis Schain told The Associated Press.

Two delivery workers for The Grand Rapids Press in Michigan were killed Sunday morning after their car fell into a deep ravine created when a rain-swollen creek washed out a road, according to a story posted on the newspaper’s Web site.

Also in Michigan, a woman died when a small trailer blew over on top of her Sunday afternoon west of Lansing, Michigan, Sheriff Mike Raines told the Lansing State Journal.

Several storms plowed eastward through central Michigan, downing trees and power lines all over Ingham County, said Sgt. Mike Perez, the county’s emergency management program manager. One woman in a Lansing city park was struck by a tree, though her injuries were not life-threatening.

Meanwhile, storms in Nebraska spun out an early-morning Omaha tornado about a quarter-mile wide that moved northeast.

Jeff Leanna, a member of the fire department’s community response team, submitted photos from the scene to CNN showing housing pushed off their foundations, a flattened trailer home and several businesses with their roofs blown off and windows blown out.

“The damage is spotty,” he said, but power outages were widespread. “It sort of came out of nowhere. The tornado touched down before the sirens went off.”

And heavy rains, as much as 11 inches in some communities, flooded central Indiana over the weekend, testing levees and forcing many to find safety atop rooftops. See which communities were hit the hardest »

At least one person died as the result of rising waters, according to a police spokesman in Columbus, Indiana. The victim was swept away while driving a car through flood water.

The worst-hit areas were communities about 25 miles south of Indianapolis and further west in Terre Haute, with most towns receiving 6-10 inches of rainfall, said John Hendrickson, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service. Watch residents take to their roofs to avoid rising water »

He said some affected areas hadn’t seen a such flooding for 100 years.

Officials were worried about two levees as water spilled over them in Johnson County, one of the hardest hit areas. But they have so far held up.

A small community downstream from the levee at Princess Lake was trapped as roadways leading out remained submerged Saturday afternoon, Hendrickson said. A hospital in Johnson County was also flooded. Watch hospital deal with flooding »

A levee burst in the Iowa town of Parkersburg, still reeling from a deadly tornado that struck two weeks ago, according to the National Weather Service. Flooding from the levee break shut down portions of three interstate highways.

Flood waters continued to rise throughout Iowa on Sunday, with the northern part of the state receiving up to 5 inches of rain from a single afternoon storm, said Bret Voorhees, spokesman for Iowa Homeland Security and Emergency Management.

Waters were expected to crest mid-week at the earliest, he said, adding that at least 200 people were displaced across the state.