MASON CITY – A flash flood hit Mason City Saturday as heavy rains fell in a short amount of time.
Persons traveling by car under the South Federal underpass at the 900 block became trapped in their cars. Water reached several feet deep in a short amount of time as rain water rushed to that spot before going into sewers.
Mason City’s Blake Cooper told NIT that he “rescued three young boys this morning” were under the railroad bridge.
At the same time, a very dangerous situation developed at the Wal-Mart store on the city’s west edge.
Fire Chief Bob Platts said that 8:18 AM Saturday morning, the Mason City Fire Department was dispatched to a roof collapse at the Mason City Wal-Mart Shopping Center, 4151 4th Street SW in Mason City. While in route dispatched notified the department that there was a strong odor of natural gas and that Alliant Energy had been notified. On arrival they found an employee was trapped inside a semi-trailer and confirmed the gas leak and shut off the gas to the building. The air was monitored and the employee was assisted out of the area. The roof collapse was in the southeast area of the building where the loading dock is located. Fire department made sure that the building was secured for electrical, gas and sprinkler systems.
Chief Platts said the incident occurred during a period of extremely heavy rain in the Mason City area and an investigation is underway. The building will be closed to anyone until a structural engineer is able to assess the building and the department is continuing to work with the local Wal Mart management. The department left the scene at 11:53 a.m.
I’ve known Blake for about 25 years, and he didn’t call the papers. He is friends with someone from the globe and they asked him if they could use his photo’s after they saw them on Facebook, I saw them ask him in his comments.
And I have also seen him around his son numerous times and he is a very good father. I just can’t see him acting like that in a store with his son with him.
He doesn’t think of himself as a hero at all,in fact he doesn’t like all the attention. He just did…
Blake’s alright guy…at least he has been to me over the years. I’ve heard other accounts of him, but never witnessed anything negative other than an exuberant bear hug one night at a downtown tavern. I felt it was better to be manhandled by a gorilla, than to be groped by a clown, of which i was both that night. Speaking of the clown, is he still in jail? Wild eyes and froed out hair.
A true hero dips in, does what needs to be done and then dips out, staying humble and not looking for attention.
I heard he called the media himself. That’s not being humble.
I am in no way saying this guy is a hero, far from it in fact.
Blake is an intense guy, hard worker, and helped some folks. Let’s give him credit for that. Maybe he called the newspaper, I do not know, but he didn’t call NIT.
Hero? Hardly. Thats great he helped some kids. But believe me he is eating up the attention. Known this guy my whole life and he is not a very nice person.
@me-they ;love to call anyone a hero who does anything a normal person would do these days. Fireman are called hero’s for doing what they were trained and paid to do and paid very well I might add. Police are hero’s for doing the same thing and of course anyone in the military is a hero whether they have seen combat or not.
I saw this so called hero at the store yesterday hassling a couple. Following them through the store and calling them vulgar names and throwing f bombs. While his son was in the cart with him.
He’s done some housepainting for me in the past, and was as nice as could be.
Regarding the hero bit–no one who does those kinds of things refers to themselves as heroic. The media does that.
Obviously they got a lot of rain in a very short time in parts of the city. Up here in the North End we were being watched over and just received a gentle rain for about 4 hours, which we needed. I wonder if the south end of town needed a good cleaning. Hope everyone is O.K. down there.
In WalMart’s case, it was the wrath of god.