Floods devastate Iowa hog farmers

OAKVILLE, Iowa, June 18 (UPI) -- No estimates are available yet for the number of livestock drowned in the Iowa floods or the impact it will have on the nation's largest hog-producing state.

Farmers like Ron Lanz of Oakville had to scramble to move thousands of hogs to higher ground as levees broke and water engulfed entire Iowa towns, The Chicago Tribune reported Wednesday.

Lanz said after the Iowa River levee collapsed, he was forced to decide whether to jump into a friend's pickup truck to save his own life or stay to save the lives of more than 800 hogs.

"It's devastating to leave those hogs behind," Lanz told the Tribune. "I don't like to think about it."

Before leaving his farm, Lanz got a cousin to take 1,300 hogs and sold nearly 1,000 more. An additional 1,800 hogs were moved to a feedlot in another town before the final levee broke.

When Lanz returned to his farm Monday he found just 30 pigs still alive.