June 12, 2008
the five seasons
6/12/08
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Those of us from Cedar Rapids, IA are not used to seeing the town on the front page of the New York Times and Google News, but there it is: all under water.
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the hospital where Michelle was born
Founded by a horse thief in 1838, they used to say Cedar Rapids was a town that couldn't be flooded, which means practically nobody has flood insurance. To say this town has been devastated may be putting it lightly. Cedar Rapids has had 120,000 people living there for fifty years; every time an old person died, a baby was born. That number may tumble after this.
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Currently underwater is the Paramount Theater, a huge, old vaudeville venue that was painstakingly renovated for the Cedar Rapids Symphony (a project spearheaded by my dad); also the library where I basically learned to read.
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Iowa City yesterday
Equally struck is Iowa City, just downstream, known to more of you as the home of the University of Iowa, but also home to my brother Kent. He says he bought his house specifically because it was on higher ground, but this is the kind of thing that permanently alters your perspective. There will be homes, lives, restaurants, paintings, friends, forever lost. Four Boy Scouts were killed by a tornado on Wednesday night, attending the same camp I did when I was a boy.
Transmit a few kind thoughts, say a little prayer, or donate a little money to help rescue, OK?
Posted by Ian Williams at June 12, 2008 11:14 PMTerrible. I am so sorry for everyone living through this mess. This spring's weather makes me think of that old commercial: "It's not nice to fool Mother Nature." What's she so mad about? Global warming?
Heckuva Job, Brownie!
I feel Cedar Rapids' pain. The Chicago River floods about every five or six years, and when it did in 2001, I got three feet of water in my entire condo. There's something surreally awful about standing knee-deep in water in one's own kitchen. Many family photos, etc. destroyed but, thankfully, no fatalities (human or animal). Cedar Rapids looks far worse, and it must be terrible. My prayers go out to the people of Iowa and the families of the killed and wounded Boy Scouts.
Kent -- are you online? What's the situation there?
I'm glad it doesn't seem too bad in Iowa City, but my thoughts are with you and especially the harder-hit folks up in CR.
Having been in Missouri in '93, I agree 100% with Eric -- there's not much worse than a flood.
The boy scout tragedy was especially heart-wretching for me. I have a little boy scout near their age.
I grew up mostly in Cape Girardeau, MO, and I have vivid memories of sandbagging near the Mississippi in the 70's. It was a community effort. My thoughts are with Iowans today.
Hopefully Kent will check in soon.
Just got this from Kent:
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I left work about noon today, because one of the faculty came through saying "THEY'RE CLOSING THE BURLINGTON STREET BRIDGE!" -- the last east-west river crossing in town. I was concerned that they would close all the bridges and I'd be stuck on the west side with no way to get home. I figured the buses were a lost cause since even if the bridge was open it would be a parking lot, so I walked down the hill to the river. I noticed that they weren't blocking pedestrians on the Iowa Avenue Bridge, so I went that way. I took a couple of camera phone pics along the way:
The tunnel under Iowa Avenue on the west side: http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3190/2577214626_6101e4c929_o.jpg
I walked down the steps to take the picture and in the time it took to frame the picture, the water came up at the bottom of the steps so I had to jump it to go back up.This pic is facing north towards Hancher and the Technology Center:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3281/2576384779_22f3bd98e6_o.jpgI was standing at the bridge rail, not crouched down, so this picture should give you some idea of how high the water is. The flood stage for the Iowa in Iowa City is 12 feet, and the river was at 30 feet when this picture was taken; the railroad bridge in the foreground usually has 20 feet between the rail bed and the water.
looking east towards the Old Capitol from the middle of Iowa Avenue:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3270/2576384923_ffd44b0af4_o.jpgThere's a lake of water at the low point, with 4-5 feet of water on the sidewalk. To cross, you have to hop up on the train tracks and walk south to the front of the University Library.
the parking lot behind the English Philosophy Building. Now with reflecting pond:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3027/2576385075_beceab2d9e_o.jpg
the Johnson County Jail is threatened with flooding; apparently they let some of the current prisoners out to help sandbag the Lindquist Center, on the corner of Burlington and Madison:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3132/2576385219_f7a42cbdf8_o.jpglooking south down Highway 6 at the Gilbert Street intersection:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3009/2577215446_f8d0dd941e_o.jpgOn the left, Hills Bank is surrounded by a wall of sandbags, and is not yet submerged. But the Highway 6 bridge over the river is completely underwater, and when the river crests, the intersection will probably be inundated as well.
Yesterday Sean and Lucas were sandbagging down by the IMU (student union building). This afternoon, we unloaded a bunch of merchandise from the Second Act and drove it to a warehouse in North Liberty. To get to North Liberty without getting stuck in traffic, we had to go east to Scott Boulevard and take the Herbert Hoover Highway out to I80, which is about 5 miles east, then take the Interstate back to 965 (aka old 218). We got a truck from the rental place next to Melissa's store, and the guy there had been talking to the city and shooting levels with surveying equipment; according to him, the Second Act will be safe unless we get a ton of rain and the river crests about 5 feet higher than is expected.
The Cedar Rapids Second Act [their family consignment store - ed.] is now inundated -- in 4-5 feet of standing water. The Cedar River has crested and will likely start receding over the weekend. The store is likely a total loss, but, we were looking for a graceful exit. This is short, sharp, muddy exit.
The only viable route to Cedar Rapids from Iowa City is a 240-mile jaunt to Des Moines, up I-35 and back on Highway 20 to Interstate 380. The Cedar River has come up over all 4 lanes of I-80 about 30 miles west of us, so we're pretty much marooned.
I guess I will be working from home next week -- the Hospital has told all non-essential employees to stay home all week. I should be going to the Democratic Convention in Des Moines tomorrow but I think I'll stay closer to home in case we really need to clear out The Iowa City Second Act store. Hopefully that won't happen. We're pretty lucky actually; there are people with $300K houses down on Normandy Drive and Taft Speedway that will likely be total losses. We live a couple of blocks away from a grocery store. Our biggest inconveniences right now is that WSUI is off the air, and for some reason we lost Sprint Cellular service at home. So long as we keep Internet and Cable TV, though, we're pretty much in the lap of luxury.
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