Midwest Flooding

[AccuCast]

How many here were affected by the Midwest Flooding. I am on fairly high ground but near the Des Moines River in Ottumwa, Iowa. I only got some back up in the basement and had to take a cross country route to the house because the road was under water.

Hope no one had any serious damage. I look forward to hearing what is happening in other areas.

[CarolAnn]

I'm lucky that I can get to work without a detour - but the floods caused a traffic jam a week ago so my 20 minute ride took almost 2 hours. I've learned to find routes for people that I work with so they can take back roads and avoid a few of the lengthy detours.

My hometown in Iowa was partially flooded - and my sister sent me this link of the Iowa DOT flood pictures:

http://iowadot.gov/floods/2008gallery.html

I'm really sad to see so many of the corn fields either flooded or growing short, yellow stalks since the fertiziler was washed out! A few farmers were fortunate and will have bumper crops - and the prices they get will be high because so many crops are gone.

[Buck]

Can anyone say melting polar ice moves to the air then
rains all over eveybody?

I sure feel for the folk's along the river. They are IMO the first
victims of Global Warming. :'(

[MooseToo]

the first victims of the global warming scare were logic and common sense -
seems to me that the levees now in place resulted from floods taking place long, long before algore decided to make political hay from the weather -

[Quietgentleman]

I live in Vinton on the Cedar River which is also the river that goes through Cedar Rapids. I myself live on high ground so I wasn't effected much other than working hard sand bagging before the flood. Then helping my best friend clean up his mother in laws house. Our power plant and main electrical feed from the grid has been taken out. The floor in the power plant heaved up 3 foot and then flooded. We are currently running off of 3 big generators and are on limited electical use so that means no ac. It sounds like we will be off the grid most of the summer. Two to two and a half miles of the highway going north out of town was washed out. But like all good midwesterns we banded together and did what was needed and still are. It was my privilage to work and meet some of volunteers.

QGM

[madmac]

Sorry to see so many folks struggling as well as their loss. Mother nature has no bounds. Many a farmer is in for a couple of tough years as well. Many prayers and hope of better days soon. Be safe my brothers and sisters

[maineyankee]

As tragic as this is, let's not lose sight of reality. If this was a "500 yr flood", where was the 500 yr rainfall ? The build up of dikes and restriction of flood plains just means the water is going to go somewhere else. Remember, this whole levee concept was brought to you by the corp of engineers.

[CarolAnn]

QGM - I used to have friends in Vinton, so I was especially dismayed to see the photos of the damage there. It's a beautiful old town.

My home town, Rock Falls, IA, was also flooded badly, but it has been before. When the area was newly settled, Rock Falls was a thriving village larger than Mason City at the same time. Floods took out the mill, the bridge and many houses there.

We had record snowfall last winter, which saturated the soil. Then with the unusually hard spring rains came disaster. The dams and dikes have prevented many floods in the past - it just happens once in a while that old Mom Nature gets in an extra hissy and pours down more than anything can contend with.

I don't blame the corps of engineers with their dikes and dams. I blame our own elected officials who cut corners on maintenance and inspection to insure they were up to standard.

We're paying the price here in Wisconsin - dams that were supposed to be inspected every ten years haven't been checked in 20 or 30, and same goes for bridges. Now we have roads closed, not because the bridge is OUT but because we can't take the chance that it's been undermined and weakened by the water. In this regard, the floods were a good wake-up call.

The town near Lake Dalton (a man-made lake) cancelled it's flood insurance a few years ago because the lake was "protected" by a dam. The dam is still there - but the dike that no one dreamed could wash out is gone, ripping up homes and tearing whole lots out when the lake drained. People can't rebuild - there's nothing to build on. Some lessons just have to be learned the hard way.