Flood of 2008

Do you remember the scene from Close Encounters of the Third Kind when Richard Dryfuss' character shows up on the mountain in order to look for more UFOs, and there are dozens of people there (crazy people) and he felt a bit like an outsider? That's how I felt today when Tyler and I went to the Reservoir to see it going over the spillway. Very interesting to see, a LOT of strange people there.


It was creepy - people all over, old, young, teenagers, and some park rangers even talking to people. We barely found a place to park, and then got almost run over a couple times while walking to the fence. (Okay - so maybe we were one of the strange ones too!) Everyone coming to gawk at the fury Mother Nature is unleashing on us.

The water started going over the spillway yesterday. And what does that mean? That means the town of Iowa City and Coralville are virtually going to turn into 1000 moats. Today there is now two ways to get into Iowa City from where we live, even though we went through this same thing 15 years ago. They told us 15 years ago (during the Flood of '93), that we wouldn't ever see these type of flood waters again in our lifetime. Roads were completely dug up and raised, but it hasn't seemed to help. (Huh - seems worse this time.)

The whole eastern part of the state is virtually under water. Everything seems shut down, and everyone is sandbagging for something. Below is a graph that shows that water level in the Reservoir over the last year:

Back in 1993, my only concern was the impact that this stupid flood was having on my social life and my ability to get to work and school. My boyfriend at the time literally put his belongings on pallets in his apartment, and moved into my parents house for a week because you needed a boat to get to his door. Classes at the University of Iowa had to move to other buildings - which was also an annoyance.

Today, I'm still worried if I'll be able to get to work in Cedar Rapids, but I'm also worried for all the people that have this happening to them. What do they have to come home to when this is all done, and how will they recover? Having a home and family myself now, I cannot imagine having to leave my house will everything I could box up as fast as I could - and just leave. No way - no how.

I'm eagerly anticipating what we will face tomorrow. Most of the towns literally have one way to get through town - if at all. Entire towns have been evacuated, and many neighborhoods are underwater. Keep Eastern Iowa in mind and send some dry weather our way so we can finally have some resemblance of normalcy in our lives!