Flood Thoughts

Anyone else's allergies in full gear? I feel icky, icky, icky! I take two allergy meds each day and I STILL am having issues - blah. Matt pointed out that with all the mold, etc. from the flood that the counts have to be really high in Cedar Rapids now so he's not surprised.

It seems so uncouth to be complaining about allergies when so many others have gotten far worse handed to them over the last week. It's hard to get my mind wrapped around all the devastation -- if you stuck to the NE side of CR you'd almost never know anything has happened. The fallout from the flood is starting to become more tangible to grasp. Co-workers are sharing the stories of their relatives, friends who worked downtown are finding the status of their jobs up in the air, Matt's grandmother's house was deemed a total loss (she's in Florida safe and sound), and Reminisce is now front page news on KCRG.com -- their business is a total loss too. http://www.kcrg.com/news/local/20616484.html

Yet even in the midst of all of this people are keeping their chins up and trying to infuse some fun. I've seen some great forwards of "new shoes" for Iowans...they were high healed flippers. I've also received several heart warming forwards of stories about how great Iowans are that are appearing in papers around the US.

Today a co-worker shared the positive outlook of a flood victim she knew, who was trying to find the silver lining before the flooding occurred. She told us knowing they were in the area that was going to be flooded these people decided to remove everything from their basement and then filled it with clean water. Yes, the carpet,etc. was still going to have to be replaced...however the pressure of the water was already built up on the inside walls of the house so when the pressure from the outside flood waters arrived the foundation and structure of the house was intact...they further reasoned that if their basement was full of clean water that the nasty Cedar River water would not seep into their basement (or at least not as much I suppose) because there was no more room. I know, it sounds like an urban myth or something, doesn't it! I would love to see an interview with these folks!

I didn't realize the extreme damage that water could cause to the infrastructure of a city. Here's one last photo to leave you with for tonight. The message sent with the photo said this is Hwy. 1 South of Mt. Vernon