Slick roads may have played a role in a southwest Iowa crash Wednesday evening that killed one person and sent three Nebraska men to the hospital.

The Iowa State Patrol is investigating the Mills County crash which claimed the life of 62-year-old Randall Jones, of Henderson, Iowa.

The accident happened on Highway 34, about two-miles east of Malvern, at around 5 p.m.

Jones was driving a 2003 Buick LeSabre east on Highway 34, when his car collided near the centerline of the road with a westbound 1997 Ford pickup, driven by 40-year-old Agustin Argueta, of Omaha.

Argueta, and two passengers in his truck, 21-year old Hector Gimenez, and 28-year old Rubin Antonio Soza Alvarez, both of whom are from Omaha, were transported to Creighton University Medical Center.

Arguetta and Gimenz was taken to the hospital by Malvern Rescue, while Alvarez was transported by Glenwood Rescue. Gimenez was the only one of the accident victims who was not wearing a seatbelt.

Ric Hanson, KJAN, Atlantic

An independent panel that includes scientists from three federal agencies has determined the U-S Army Corps of Engineers was not primarily to blame for damage caused by historic Missouri River flooding last year.

Critics have said the Corps should have released more water from the reservoirs earlier in the season to make room in anticipation of the flooding.

Neil Grigg, a civil engineering professor at Colorado State University, was on the review panel and says it’s not that simple.

“To release water earlier, this means you’ve gotta have like perfect foresight of what’s gonna’ happen down the road, in particular, that heavy rainfall in Montana that occurred in May,” Grigg explains. “It’s easy to say you should have known that and you should have released that water sooner. But the truth is, nobody could have known that. It was a completely unanticipated weather event.”

Grigg says snowmelt runoff from the mountains and the plains combined with the heavy rains to produce the record flood.

He says no one accurately predicted the amount of rain and melting snow that filled the Missouri River and its reservoirs.

“Could that happen again, is climate change going to occur, what’s going on? Well there are plenty of people with opinions about those things, but when you look at the science of it, nobody knows for sure,” Grigg says.

The group recommends a variety of possible actions. Grigg says the Corps should examine the master manual, which lays out in detail how the river is to be managed, and consider whether changes are needed.

He says the Corps may need to look at adding storage space for future flooding. But he says the tradeoff would be less water for things like navigation and recreation.