CHICAGO — For weeks, residents of Davenport, Iowa, looked warily toward the flooded Mississippi River as it encroached on their downtown, the water kept at bay only by temporary barriers lining the street.

On Tuesday, those barriers broke, sending murky river water rushing into businesses and forcing residents to scramble to safety. About 30 people who did not make it out in time were rescued by firefighters.

“The whole city had a very frantic feel about it,” said Rebecca Nicke, a co-owner of Abernathy’s, a vintage store located about half a block from the barrier, who said she ran for her vehicle and drove toward a hill when she heard the water coming.

“You start shaking,” said Ms. Nicke, who salvaged much of her inventory but does not expect to be able to return to her building for weeks. “And everything around me was like a blur.”

The flooding in Davenport, the third-largest city in Iowa, came amid a record-setting year of floods that have devastated cropland, small towns, infrastructure and Native American reservations across a large area of the Midwest. The damage in Davenport was more limited in scope than recent months have brought to parts of Nebraska, Missouri and western Iowa, but it was a reminder of the ongoing risks to the region as rivers rise and rainfall compounds the problems.

In the region around Davenport, the Mississippi has been above major flood stage for 39 days, a record. More rain is in the forecast with few signs of relief ahead.

“We’re not expecting the river to really go down anytime soon,” said Jessica Brooks, a hydrologist at the National Weather Service office in Davenport. “With the levels as high as they are and the flood conditions as they are, any additional rain we get will probably cause additional rises.”

Davenport was not the only place dealing with flooding on Wednesday as storms moved through the region. Heavy rains caused flooding in parts of Michigan and Illinois, where officials closed roads and warned residents not to drive through high waters. In Dearborn Heights, Mich., the mayor requested an emergency declaration from the state and opened a shelter for flood victims. In Detroit, officials said they would ask residents to help fill sandbags after water breached a sea wall in a residential area.

The new flooding in Davenport, where riverfront parks have been under water for weeks, was confined to several blocks at the city’s core. Dozens of residents and some businesses were affected, but no injuries were reported.

“There’s some property damage and some cars that stayed too long,” said Frank Klipsch, Davenport’s mayor. “They’ll be hard to drive with the steering wheel under water.”

The flooding comes at a time when Democratic presidential hopefuls are crisscrossing Iowa ahead of the state’s first-in-the-country caucuses. Some of them, including Senator Kamala Harris of California and former Representative Beto O’Rourke of Texas, posted messages of support for the city on Twitter.

Davenport residents have long debated whether they should build a permanent wall to protect against floods, as many other cities along the Mississippi have done.

The flood on Tuesday is likely to revive that debate.

“There’ll be people suggesting that,” Mr. Klipsch said, noting that not building a permanent flood wall helps protect cities and states south of Davenport.

“How can we embrace the river without just pushing the water down to Arkansas and Missouri?” he said. “We try not to just push our problems downriver.”

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