Marvel Posted June 14, 2008 Share Posted June 14, 2008 Let's not forget all those in Iowa who are dealing with the flooding. I think DJK is north of Cedar Rapids a little ways... at least he IS in Iowa. Haven't heard from him in a while. Bruce Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
picky Posted June 14, 2008 Share Posted June 14, 2008 Bruce: Yes, it is very humbling to witness (on TV) what the poor folks in all of the flooded areas in several states are going through right now. I hope the fatalities are as minimal as possible. Many may have lost everything they own in their lives, but at least they have themselves and their families, which is what ultimatley matters. Even seeing folks get their pets back alive after having to leave them behind for whatever reason is heartwarming. One poor woman thought her children had been swept away by a sudden torrent, but they were found a few hours later. The look of joy and relief on her face said it all! May God Bless all of the people who are enduring this seemingly insurmountable challenge of life. -Glenn Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tigerwoodKhorns Posted June 14, 2008 Share Posted June 14, 2008 I was watching the CNN coverage and thinking about how badly the people there are suffering from the floods and how we so desperately need that water here in the desert (but not as a flood). The world is very unfair. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marvel Posted June 14, 2008 Author Share Posted June 14, 2008 I spent a good amount of time looking through posted photos of the flooding, and it is humbling indeed. Also spent a long time looking through pics of the devastation in China from the recent earthquake. After having been there last October to visit my Filipna gf, the immensity of the tragedy just cannot be comprehended. Man made disasters are bad enough, but natural disasters, whether fires, floods, earthquakes, tornados, just serve to remind me of how finite we are in this life, in this world. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oldbuckster Posted June 14, 2008 Share Posted June 14, 2008 Mother Nature has been quite unforgiving this year ........... Floods, Tornado's, Wild Fires, Hurricanes ...... our thoughts and prayers to all affected ....... No one rushing to help us ........ except Fellow Americans .............. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djk Posted June 14, 2008 Share Posted June 14, 2008 For the time being I'm dry. Currently filling up all the empty 2-liter bottles I haven't returned, we will lose water soon. The 6th street power plant is out. The grid can pick up the electrical part of the load, but they also provided steam to the hospitals, other businesses, and residences (heat and hot water). The Prairie Creek plant is out too, they provide more power than the nuclear plant in Palo. Palo is undewater, don't know the status of the nuclear plant (I don't have a radio or TV). I lost a cube-van full of equipment, maybe $20K. While I live five miles from downtown and the river, they've closed the street I live on, but we can still get out on the north side. The news media and city govenrment have not been responsible, in many ways creating panic and problems that would not have existed otherwise. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LoudnClear Posted June 14, 2008 Share Posted June 14, 2008 I'm from just east of Cedar Rapids. Luckily, I'm not affected (yet) by the flooding, but I have been helping others as much as possible. Its been a very busy week as I've been busy sandbagging (Palo and Iowa City) in preparation for the flooding, and have been involved with the amateur radio efforts related to storm watch and flood nets, monitoring the river levels and assisting in emergency communications. The police station is flooded and they moved to other buildings. There are multiple shelters in schools for the evacuees to stay for the forseeable future. Ham operators are manning those stations too. Hams were manning both hospitals, until one was evacuated due to flooding, now hams are manning St Lukes Hospital. The power and communcations systems around the area have been having rolling failures, so this backup communication has been vital. I'm happy to have been able to have been involved and help some people out. The water is just slowly receeding now, there is a very long road ahead in all the cleanup and rebuilding. I've heard over 1000 city blocks were affected by floodwater, between 25+ feet to 6 inches. Here's a picture of some of downtown Cedar Rapids we took from the interstate bridge. The next post is a picture of a creek that is about 500 feet away from my house down a hill (good). The creek is normally 6 feet wide, but since the ground is so soaked, it swells up like this each time we get rain through here, which has been about everyday for a couple weeks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LoudnClear Posted June 14, 2008 Share Posted June 14, 2008 The pic above of Cedar Rapids, the water is down about 3-4 ft from the high water mark. This is the pic of the swelling creek by my house. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
colterphoto1 Posted June 14, 2008 Share Posted June 14, 2008 That's a little close for comfort. Prayers for you guys and your families and neighbors. Geesh, I was complaining about my 'damp' basement. I'll consider myself lucky now. M Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daddy Dee Posted June 15, 2008 Share Posted June 15, 2008 Loud & Clear, You're a good man helping these folks. Hope the water goes down before getting your house. My wife is from NE Iowa, Aurora, and we've been watching this hoping the worst is past. Did you see the video of the coal freight train washing away with the railroad bridge? I'm still trying to imagine the magnitude of that washout. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LoudnClear Posted June 15, 2008 Share Posted June 15, 2008 Dee, If you're talking about the rail bridge that went down in Cedar Rapids, yes I've seen that video. This is such an unprecidented event, they just didn't have any idea it would get this high. I remember Monday 6/16 I was sandbagging out in Palo and they thought the crest would be 21.5 feet, so we were building our dikes a foot or so above that. At that time the river was at 16.5 feet, so we could tell we needed about 6 foot above that. Later the prediction got changed to 22, then 24, then 32. 12 feet is flood stage. The previous record was 20 feet in 1929. We crested at 31.12 feet. The show was well underway when they rolled out the 24 and 32 foot crest predictions. Looking back, had we understood that so much of our sandbagging efforts were in vain, we could have been directing that effort at removing peoples' valuables from their basements and 1st floors, putting them on the second floor. So many people got caught off gaurd because the prediction was so much lower than the final crest. Anyways, that is in my mind as I see people sandbagging like crazy in Iowa City, which is south of here and is going to get a huge, unprecidented crest in the next couple days. I keep thinking that they might be better off removing valuables than sandbagging. Few of the sandbagging efforts I've seen around here were able to hold up. They failed before the water eventually reached the top and completely buried them. Back to the initial low prediction. Its my understanding that they parked train cars full of gravel or stone on the 2 railroad bridges downtown. I think the water got so high as to hit the bottom of the cars and act as a water sail applying a huge drag force to the bridge, bringing it down. Perhaps it would have been better off without the cars on it. As an engineer, I am very well familiar with what is involved in making educated guesses when in unprecidented territory (design-wise is my experience, not flood prep-wise). I don't place any blame on the authorities who initially predicted a crest 10 feet below the final crest. There was just no historical data available to base an estimate on. However, now that this event has happened, there IS data available for the scientists to model future predictions on, and I expect far better performance in the future. The data I'm speaking about are A) rainfall rates upstream vs ground saturation and how it relates to river stages down stream, and Which blocks are affected by which riverstages, resulting in more accurate evacuation orders. Each time we as humans push the envelope and experience something outside the limits of which we've previously experienced, there are so many lessons that we can learn to help in future experiences. I hope that the cities, counties, state government, federal government and all the scientific entities (NWS, USGS etc) learn as much as they can from this. The images of the flooded areas in downtown Cedar Rapids, I've heard 1000 blocks, reminds me so much of New Orleans. The flooded areas of Cedar Rapids fall mostly into two categories, poverty to very low middle class residential and commerce ranging from small business to large business. There is also a significant portion of government buildings effected. I hope that these poor (monetarily) people are not shunned by the powers that be. There's a tiny amount of the property affected that is covered by flood insurance. Since this is such an unprecidented flood stage, they can't be just hung out to dry. There's a right way and a wrong way to repair flood damage. The right way is expensive and difficult. The wrown way is to just hose the place down and paint it and sell it. If significant help is not given to these people, they will hose and paint and that is going to result in huge structural, mold and mildew problems in the future leading to safety and extreme slums. That not what we need. I'm afraid uncle sam in going to have to print another large sum of money to help out here. I can't say I disagree with it in this case though. Just some coarse thoughts on what we've been going through... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oldbuckster Posted June 15, 2008 Share Posted June 15, 2008 Way to help out Loud and Clear ..... be careful yourself ..... Mother Nature is testing our people, and in the end, the people overcome by Faith and Trust in a Higher Being, and the people will SURVIVE, and move AHEAD ................ GOD BLESS AMERICA !!!!!!!!!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
picky Posted June 15, 2008 Share Posted June 15, 2008 Sadly, proof that, "Water always wins".... Homes stacked like cord wood against a rail bridge on the Cedar River Saturday. How terrible. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oldbuckster Posted June 15, 2008 Share Posted June 15, 2008 The Power of Mother Nature ..................... A picture is worth a thousand words ............. INDEED !!!!!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LoudnClear Posted June 15, 2008 Share Posted June 15, 2008 Picky, yes those are boat houses from the Ellis Park area, about 1 mile upstream from downtown Cedar Rapids. These homes normally float on the river along a pennensula. When the river rose, they tore loose and floated downstream, landing against the first obstruction, which was the bridge. Note that a boat house is different than a house boat. A boat house does not have a propulsion mechanism and is intended to stay moored in one place, whereas a house boat does and is navigable through waterways. I'm currently manning a ham radio communication post at the Prairie High School Red Cross Shelter, just south of Cedar Rapids. Its supper time and they just opened the food line to the hundreds who've lined up for food. Many evacuees are living in the gymnasium on cots, while hundreds more come down for food service, tetanus shots etc, then go back to wherever they're staying, be it with family or in motels. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Duke Spinner Posted June 18, 2008 Share Posted June 18, 2008 Didja hear about all the Looting and Damage crowds did ..??? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oldbuckster Posted June 19, 2008 Share Posted June 19, 2008 Looting is the LOWEST form of stealing ................ Looting should be punished ......... Unacceptable, under any circumstance !!!!!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Duke Spinner Posted June 19, 2008 Share Posted June 19, 2008 well, .... there wasn't any, OB.. what is the fundamental difference betwwen the same occurence in New Orleans, and Iowa ..??? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WS65711 Posted June 19, 2008 Share Posted June 19, 2008 The answer to the question posed is obvious. However, posting the answer will get the thread removed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
searayrunner Posted June 19, 2008 Share Posted June 19, 2008 A few pics from the Ellis Blvd area in Cedar Rapids... http://pictures.aol.com/ap/singleImage.do?pid=70f06AGK4AlZOEX*JNUw8j07LOebM8ldXDjtv4xQp5Fd3Ig%3D http://pictures.aol.com/ap/singleImage.do?pid=70f06AGK4AlZOEX*JNUw8j07LJRIByBqHhibv4xQp5Fd3Ig%3D http://pictures.aol.com/ap/singleImage.do?pid=70f06AGK4AlZOEX*JNUw8j07LF3VMjYfqxhzv4xQp5Fd3Ig%3D http://pictures.aol.com/ap/singleImage.do?pid=70f06AGK4AlZOEX*JNUw8j07LCdjK4zP1Xquv4xQp5Fd3Ig%3D http://pictures.aol.com/ap/singleImage.do?pid=70f06AGK4AlZOEX*JNUw8j07LBWptYISEbiYv4xQp5Fd3Ig%3D http://pictures.aol.com/ap/singleImage.do?pid=70f06AGK4AlZOEX*JNUw8j07LE52N8Jy*r6kv4xQp5Fd3Ig%3D http://pictures.aol.com/ap/singleImage.do?pid=70f06AGK4AlZOEX*JNUw8j07LMU0puMDvsusv4xQp5Fd3Ig%3D http://pictures.aol.com/ap/singleImage.do?pid=70f06AGK4AlZOEX*JNUw8j07LHmEgtcORGMvv4xQp5Fd3Ig%3Dhttp://pictures.aol.com/ap/singleImage.do?pid=70f06AGK4AlZOEX*JNUw8j07LBWptYISEbiYv4xQp5Fd3Ig%3D' target="_blank" title="http://pictures.aol.com/ap/singleImage.do?pid=70f06AGK4AlZOEX*JNUw8j07LBWptYISEbiYv4xQp5Fd3Ig%3D"> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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