Saturday, June 14, 2008

Iowa Flooding

TRAVEL

It's not often that you're in the middle of disaster you hear about in radio or TV, but in my case, I was in the middle of it. Record rainfall has caused flooding in eastern part of Iowa not seen since 1963. They closed off I80. detour goes 61N to Dubuque 20E. That's quite far! Not comforting is the sign "All other routes are closed". Yikes!

I was there when it rained. Buckets of water literally hit the windshield, I wondered if it would held. The first day it's okay. The second is the one that tipped it over. Apparently, the ground was well saturated and cannot absorb any more water.

People were displaced. Businesses falters. Lots of things couldn't go on because people cannot go anywhere. "there's not much people here today, isn't it", I asked the travel center lady.
"Ssshh!" she admonished me, "There's much flooding and people cannot come to us!"
That just about sums it up. Things certainly aren't rosy when they're under 3 feet of water!
I saw parts of the flooding. Partial backyard filled with water. Energetic rivers. Things of that nature.

People were getting sandbags to their home, those who could go back. Like I said, things aren't good underwater. Anybody up for some jet skiing? I saw that too.

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