Flooding in Iowa City

[picture on flikr - posted by WHS8402]

Sure is a mess down there. Laura's work is removed from the flooding and the home we are purchasing is also high and dry. She's currently in MonkeyDoo and told not to bother to come down to work for all the water and problems IC is currently having. A few University Buildings took a hit as well as a few neighborhoods in what once was the river basin (before the Coraville dam). Mosquito flats is toast, Normandy Drive is toast, the Coralville strip is toast. At one point... all the bridges across the Iowa River were toast, but are slowly being reclaimed as the water recedes.

That's the bad news... the good news is that despite being evacuated, JoAnn, Mindy and her house managed to survive the scare by a matter of inches.

Now comes the clean-up. It will be nasty. And if you multiply the mess and smell by 50 you'll come close to what it's like in Cedar Rapids. For all intents and purposes, what was once the thriving Cedar Rapids downtown will need to be gutted and rebuilt. The scars will be permanent and the previous landscape will never return.