In my last post I talked about how devastating the flood was to our town. Now, two days later, I can say that was nothing. Today we can’t get anywhere near where I was at when I took those pictures on Wednesday. Now businesses are completely under water. Houses are covered to the roofs. Cars are floating down what is now a two mile wide river. Big windows of a furniture store on the river broke and furniture floated away. The water is only four blocks from my house and I do not live that close to the river. The river used to sit nicely between 1st Street SW and 1st Street SE. Now it flows from 10th Street SW to 6th Street SE. You can’t even see the three major bridges that go from one side of the river to the other…they are completely covered. City Hall is under water. The jail is under water. The police station is unreachable. The library is covered. The IMAX and Science Station are under water. I can’t even believe it. Words don’t do it justice. It’s that bad.

A few minutes ago I saw our town on the ABC national news. It was unreal to see the correspondent cruising around the streets I walk on every single day in a motor boat. They drove right by the restaurant where I get my chef salads for lunch. They motored past my friend’s sub shop that is completely destroyed. My heart is breaking for him. I hope he can recover his restaurant.

They also sailed past the Paramount Theater. It’s a beautiful theater that has been around since the early 1900’s. The city recently renovated it to look like it did back when it first opened. Now the whole thing is under water. The water goes all the way up to their marquee.

One of our two local hospitals has 10 feet of water. And it’s TEN BLOCKS from the river. They had to evacuate almost 200 patients to other area hospitals on Thursday night. They just renovated that hospital and now it’s ruined.

The flood level is 12 feet. In 1993 we got up to 19 feet. In 1929 we got up to 20 feet. When the river crested this morning it was at 31.12 feet. Almost 20 feet over flood level. Here is a shot of downtown from 11th Street SW. You should not be able to see the river at all from this location.

Quaker Oats is under water. This photos is from Thursday. By this morning the water was several feet higher.

Our three main bridges to get from one side of the river to the other are completely under water.

Dairy Queen is completely gone. Again this photo is from Thursday. Today the water was up to the roof.

Thursday morning we lost electricity just before 8am. Around noon it came back. But we still had no internet, phone or cable. We didn’t care. We were just happy to have electricity. At least then we could eat and watch movies.

Around 4:30 we lost power again. As as of 12:30am on Saturday, we still have no electricity. That’s 32 hours with no electricity. So far. It could be a week before we get it back.

We have some kind of contraption for our car that allows us to use the car battery to charge

Earlier today I headed to the Verizon store and bought a wireless card for my laptop. So as long as my computer is charged I can get on the internet. It feels so good to finally have interent again. (Addicted much?)

Tonight we broke down and rented a generator. It’s $65 a day, but worth every penny. We had to throw out some of our food, but were able to salvage most of it. Thankfully, since just went to the grocery store earlier this week.

The city has asked us to preserve water. We are only supposed to use water for drinking water. They have asked us not to shower or brush our teeth or anything. I bet that makes you just want to come on over to stinky Iowa.

But there is good news. As I said, the river crested this morning and it’s now starting to recede. Finally. In the last 12 hours it has gone down. A foot. Only a foot, but at least it’s going down.

Today I took some video as we traveled down the interstate. As soon as I download and edit it I’ll post it.

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 14th, 2008 at 12:07 am and is filed under A day in our life. Comments are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.