Thursday, June 12, 2008

Depressing Flood Update

Normandy Drive, where I worked on Monday, was issued a mandatory evacuation order last night. Flood waters topped the sandbag wall today. Here is a picture from the Iowa City Press Citizen website


PC Photo by Matthew Holst Steven Miller, Senior Construction Inspector for the City of Iowa City, watches the mandatory evacuation of Normandy Drive, Thursday, June 12, 2008, in Iowa City, Iowa. Miller coordinated the building of the retaining wall to protect the neighborhood and was nearly brought to tears when floodwaters broke through.

My opinion: Miller worked like a dog for 5 days straight. He is what every worker who serves the public should aspire to.

Here is a link to a podcast I created today during my technology implementation class:

flood podcast


We let class out early and I went to my office which is one block from the river. The latest projection puts the river crest on Monday nearly one foot higher than our doorway. I put all my personal items to a second floor storage area, along with other tech staff we moved my computer lab to the third floor of our central administration office building, and put my desks up on concrete blocks. The water is now even with the building across the street in front of us, and water is also rising behind our building through the storm sewers. I'll shoot some images tomorrow.

3 comments:

Jen said...

It is such a shame, that your area has too much water and we are still in a record drought. If only it could just even out. I will be thinking of ya'll. May the rains come our direction and let you guys dry out.

Jennifer said...

Hope everything is drying out for you... soon.

Mike said...

Thanks for the kind thoughts!

The problem with drying out is that the Iowa River joins the Cedar River before they both flow into the Mississippi. The Cedar is also experiencing record level flooding. The predicted crest at Cedar Rapids is 20 above FLOOD STAGE. There is a mandatory evacuation of the 500 year floodplain.

Since the Mississippi is already at flood stage without any of this water yet getting there, our levels will likely remain high for a LONG time...