Floods of Doom

So... it's been pretty crazy around here as far as the weather goes.  It's calmed down the past couple days, but we were experiencing some pretty severe thunderstorms and torrential rains.

And, of course, because of all the torrential rain and such, we had some considerable flooding throughout the state.

"Considerable" is an understatement.  

Everybody and their mom has been talking about the Iowa floods of '93 like this was a repeat of that year and, frankly, that didn't have much of an effect on me since I wasn't here for the floods of '93.  

Trust me, it was bad.  The flood was so bad that the water was shut of in the city for TEN days.  TEN days.  Can you imagine?  There were more than $1 billion in crop damages, 50 people died, and it went down as the worst flood in U.S. history. It affected 9 states in the Midwest and crushed 55,000 homes.  The Red Cross spent 44 MILLION dollars on recovery efforts.  

And this flood is WORSE than that one.  But, being the smarties they are, the Des Moines Water Works people took extra precautions after the "500 year flood" (meaning it only floods like that once every 500 years... so this one is a liiiiitle ahead of schedule) and the state still has running water (thank goodness).  

But, sadly, there are entire cities and towns under water.  Like Cedar Rapids.  Only rooftops are visible.  A voluntary evacuation was issued for downtown Des Moines, emergency spillways were breeched, and volunteers were helping fill sand bags around the clock. 

The flood is mostly over... but now the recovery begins.  

Check out these pictures.  By the way, Drake is too far from the river to be in any immediate danger.  Just so you know.  

1993

1993

1993

2008

Cedar Rapids 2008

2008