40 Days and 40 Nights, Again

It figures that I picked this last week to be in Iowa. I made it back home tonight, but it wasn't easy. I started in Des Moines, but my usual route to Highway 151 through Cedar Rapids was not an option. Instead I headed due north from Des Moines and shot across the state of Iowa on Highway 20. Because I-80 was closed between Iowa City and the Quad Cities, they detoured all of the interstate traffic onto 20. It was slow going, but dry for the most part.

The devastation across the state of Iowa was widespread. The picture you see above, I snapped at the Mississippi River in Dubuque where a barge slammed into a bridge and sank. That closed the bridge for a while until authorities deemed it sound despite the accident.

The flooding I saw in the Des Moines area was very bad. Many people had water in their homes and the streets were lined with all manner of wet items that had been pulled from basements and now await the landfill. The water was lapping right up to the interstate highway system in many parts of town. I wasn't scheduled to leave until Sunday, but I feared if I waited I might not be able to get back.

On my way down I had passed through my old stomping grounds in the Cedar Rapids area and saw the destruction first hand. That city is totally submerged. I've never seen anything quite like it. I'm not sure how they will ever fully recover with damage so widespread and so severe. More than 400 city blocks are swamped.

I was also in Des Moines back in 1993 when the city flooded. The good news is Des Moines learned something from those 93 floods. They worked on the levee system and flood control. It really worked. As bad as the floods this week are, Des Moines fared much better than in 93. Cedar Rapids did not make major changes in its flood control system following 1993. But that year Cedar Rapids did not get it as bad as the record flooding they are seeing now.

I think the Chamber of Commerce in Iowa will be sending me a letter asking me to stay away. It seems every time I go to Des Moines, there's a flood.