[LongaDonga]

Last nights' storms here in Iowa did more damage than anyone had planned for, including this...

Tornado Kills 4 in Iowa Boy Scout Camp


The remains of a ranger's house at the Little Sioux Scout Ranch in Iowa Wednesday.

By CHRISTOPHER MAAG and GRAHAM BOWLEY
Published: June 12, 2008

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa — Four teenagers were killed and 48 people were injured when a tornado tore through a Boy Scout camp in western Iowa on Wednesday night, according to a spokeswoman for the Iowa Homeland Security Division and news agency and local newspaper reports.

Those killed were identified by public safety officials as Josh Fennen, 13, Sam Thomsen, 13, and Ben Petrzilka, 14, all from Omaha, and Aaron Eilerts, 13, a camp staff member from Eagle Grove, Iowa.

Tornadoes also touched down in Kansas, Minnesota and Nebraska on Wednesday, according to The A.P. Those tornadoes killed at least two people in northern Kansas, destroyed much of the small town of Chapman and caused extensive damage on the Kansas State University campus, according to The A.P.


Zach Jessen a survivor of the tornado that killed 4 scouts Wednesday night talks with Iowa Gov. Chet Culver
in Blencoe, Iowa, Thursday.

In Iowa, all of the scouts had been accounted for late Wednesday, after rescuers cut their way through downed trees and debris to reach them, The A.P. reported.

“There had to be sawing and stuff to get to the scene,” said Russ Lewrenson of the Mondamin Fire Department.

The scouts, ages 13 to 18, were participating in a leadership training course at the camp, the Little Sioux Scout Ranch, about 40 miles north of Omaha.

“These were some of the top scouts in the area,” said the Homeland Security spokeswoman, Julie Tack.

There were 93 campers and 25 staff members at the 1,800-acre camp, which includes hiking trails, a 15-acre lake and a rifle range.


Taylor Willoughby of Bellevue, Neb., and his father, H. Taylor Willoughby, were at the Boy Scout camp in Little Sioux, Iowa,
when it was hit by a tornado on Wednesday night.

Trevor Ruffcom, a 14-year-old who went into the camp after the tornado, told The Omaha World-Herald that the camp had been wiped out. The house of the camp attendant was gone, he said. “Sights I’ve seen, I’m never going to forget,” he said.

At least 42 of those injured were still hospitalized on Thursday morning, suffering from everything from cuts and bruises to major head trauma, said Mr. Meyer, the public safety commissioner, The A.P. reported. At least four of the injured had been airlifted from the camp, he said.

The deaths of the four boys evoked another fatal tragedy that struck the Boy Scouts in July of 2005. In that incident, four men, two of them scout leaders, were setting up a tent at a Boy Scouts jamboree at Fort A.P. Hill in Virginia when a pole got too close to a live power line and the men were electrocuted.

On Wednesday, a spokeswoman at Burgess Health Center in Onawa, Iowa, Beth Frangedakis, told The A.P. that 19 victims of the tornado that swept through the camp arrived at the center at around 8:30 p.m. Wednesday.

Their ages ranged from 2 months to 15 years, plus three adults. She said four were admitted to the hospital, one was taken by helicopter to Mercy Medical Center in Sioux City, Iowa, and the others were released. She would not describe the nature of the victims’ injuries.

Taylor Willoughby, 13, of Bellevue, Neb., said several scouts were getting ready to watch a movie when someone screamed that there was a tornado, The A.P. reported. Everyone in the building hunkered down, he said, but windows were breaking.

Parents were instructed to go to the Little Sioux Church of Christ for information. “Parents just don’t know what’s happened to their kids yet,” Wayne Bahr, the church pastor, told The Des Moines Register. “I always try to offer comfort, but it’s so fresh, people are more consumed with getting information right now.”

The tornado was one of 28 reported late Wednesday moving across eastern Kansas and into Nebraska, Iowa and Minnesota.

The tornadoes hit as eastern Iowa struggled with severe flooding. Earlier, officials ordered the evacuation of parts of Cedar Rapids as the Cedar River continued to rise, and other sodden communities in the Upper Midwest braced for more flooding.

At 5 p.m. Wednesday, the Cedar River was at 22 feet, 10 feet above flood level, according to the National Weather Service.

That level, five inches shy of inundating downtown, had already topped past flooding, including 1993, when the river crested at 19.3 feet. But the water was still rising, and the Weather Service predicted that it would swell to a new high water mark of 24.7 feet by Friday evening.

Nine miles northwest of Cedar Rapids, Palo, population 900, was evacuated. In Waterloo, 50 miles northwest, part of a railroad bridge collapsed into the river, and officials evacuated some areas because of the rising water.

Sandbags in Cedar Falls, another city along the Cedar River, kept water away, but officials called for more volunteers to help.

Christopher Maag reported from Cedar Rapids, and Graham Bowley from New York. John Holusha and Anahad O’Connor contributed reporting from New York.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/12/us...DMEhQ6VI/5/mbw
Copyright 2008 New York Times Company

[Obebtetibre]

Deadly Iowa tornado struck Boy Scout camp without warning
By LARRY McSHANE
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Thursday, June 12th 2008, 10:20 AM

A deadly tornado destroyed a remote Boy Scout campground in western Iowa, killing four teens and injuring 48 others as rescuers dug through the rubble by hand looking for survivors.

The Little Sioux Scout Ranch was illuminated by lightning flashes as workers struggled through a driving rain to remove branches and debris left behind by the twister last night.

The scouts had little warning before the tornado tore into their camp, with one group still hiking across the ranch when the storm struck.


Boy scouts who survived the deadly tornado
arrive at the West Harrison High School in
Mondamin, Iowa, Thursday where they
were to be reunited with their relatives.

Several of the scouts were in a building, preparing to watch a movie, when a screaming voice alerted them to the tornado. As the youths scrambled for cover beneath tables and chairs, windows shattered and the building disintegrated.

"It sounded like a jet that was flying by really close," 13-year-old Taylor Willoughby told NBC's "Today" show this morning. "I was hoping that we all made it out OK. I was afraid for my life."

Scout supervisor Thomas White said he was among a group that began hand-digging through the wreckage of the building in a hunt for survivors.

"A bunch of us got together and started undoing the rubble from the fireplace and stuff and waiting for the first responders," White told KMTV in Omaha, Neb. "They were under the tables and stuff and on their knees, but they had no chance."



A second group of scouts was out hiking in the remote Loess Hills when the tornado touched down, and was unable to find shelter from the storm.

The tornado killed three 13-year-olds and one 14-year-old, said Lloyd Roitstein, an executive with the Mid America Council of the Boy Scouts of America.

There were 93 boys aged 13 to 18 and 25 staff members at the weeklong leadership training camp. Everyone at the camp was accounted for, authorities said.

Iowa officials said at least 42 of the injured remained hospitalized this morning, with injuries from major head trauma to cuts and bruises.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/us_w...scout_cam.html
Copyright 2008 New York Daily News

[Yarmark]

Four teenagers were killed and 48 people were injured when a tornado tore through a Boy Scout camp in western Iowa on Wednesday night, according to a spokeswoman for the Iowa Homeland Security Division Was it a terrorist tornado?

[intorkercet]

^ We're all part of the problem if we drive and live in Suburbia.

Global warming has made a world where "natural" disasters are now daily occurrences: tornadoes, earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanos, floods, cyclones and hurricanes ... we'll be living with them as constant companions from now on.

The disaster du jour.

[TZids16I]

Ben - Hope your part of Iowa is not being torn to pieces or covered over with water.

[Tusethede]

Well...not yet anyway. Last night was a serious scare because Little Sioux, where this tragedy happened is a little more than 30 minutes from where I live.

With the flooding: the town where I live is it at a high altitude so there is a slim chance that we could be flooded here. A town nearby (where I work) was nearly flooded last night with streets filled (curb to curb) with water, rivers in grass between houses, and large puddles on the sides of roads even this morning!

The situation in Des Moines is not getting any better as I'm typing this. From what I've heard on the news this afternoon, a water levy broke this afternoon and flooded the rather large city of Cedar Rapids. Downtown DM is still flooded but considering we had NO rain today, it should have helped people down there prepare for possibly anymore rain and more flooding. At least I'm hoping...

[GfBTWMmV]

Cedar Rapids struggles to endure historic flood
By AMY LORENTZEN
Associated Press Writer

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (AP) -- The Cedar River poured over its banks here Thursday, forcing the evacuation of more than 3,000 homes, causing a railroad bridge to collapse and leaving cars underwater on downtown streets.

Officials estimated that 100 blocks were underwater in Cedar Rapids, where several days of preparation could not hold back the rain-swollen river. Rescuers had to use boats to reach many stranded residents, and people could be seen dragging suitcases up closed highway exit ramps to escape the water.

"We're just kind of at God's mercy right now, so hopefully people that never prayed before this, it might be a good time to start," Linn County Sheriff Don Zeller said. "We're going to need a lot of prayers and people are going to need a lot of patience and understanding."

About 3,200 homes were evacuated and some 8,000 residents displaced, officials estimated.

Days of heavy rain across the state have sent nine rivers across Iowa at or above historic flood levels. Residents were already steeling themselves for floods before storms late Wednesday and early Thursday brought up to 5 inches of rain across west central Iowa.

"We are seeing a historic hydrological event taking place with unprecedented river levels occurring," said Brian Pierce, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Davenport. "We're in uncharted territory - this is an event beyond what anybody could even imagine."

Gov. Chet Culver has declared 55 of the state's 99 counties as state disaster areas.
No deaths or serious injuries were reported in Iowa, but one man was killed in southern Minnesota after his car plunged from a washed-out road into floodwaters. Another person was rescued from a nearby vehicle in the town of Albert Lea.

In Des Moines, officials said they were urging residents to evacuate more than 200 homes north of downtown because of concerns that the Des Moines River would top a nearby levee. Some residents also were ordered to evacuate homes along rivers in Iowa City and Coralville.

In Cedar Rapids, a city of about 124,000, flood waters downtown neared the top of stop signs and cars were nearly covered in water. It wasn't clear just how high the river had risen because a flood gauge was swept away by the swirling water.

"It's going door to door to make sure people don't need to be rescued, because right now they can't get out on their own," said Dave Koch, a spokesman for the Cedar Rapids Fire Department. "It's just too deep."

The surging river caused part of a railroad bridge and about 20 hopper cars loaded with rocks to collapse into the river. The cars had been positioned on the bridge in hopes of weighing it down against the rising water.

Joe Childers, an official at a U.S. Bank in downtown Cedar Rapids, was in jeans and tennis shoes as he worked to move documents and other items upstairs or out of the building.

"We're trying to keep water out of as many places as we can," he said. "It's pretty amazing. I don't think anyone really expected it this far."

Prisoners had to be moved from the Linn County jail, including some inmates who had been transferred from the Benton County jail in Vinton because of flooding. The sheriff's office also was under water, Zeller said.


Water from the swollen Cedar River rushes past downtown buildings Thursday,
June 12, 2008, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Officials estimated that 100 blocks
in Cedar Rapids were under water forcing the evacuation of nearly 4,000 homes
and leaving cars underwater on downtown streets. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)

"We've had to move our operations out of the area and to our alternate emergency site," Zeller said. "We are just trying to regroup. When you don't have all of your equipment and you don't have all your facilities to operate out of - we're at a little bit of a disadvantage ... but we're carrying on as normal."

Several emergency shelters were opened, and the city had closed all but one of its bridges over the Cedar River.

"I believe that this is God's way of doing things, and I've got insurance, so I'm not worried about it," said Tim Grimm, who was forced to leave his home in the city's Czech Village area.

In Austin, Minn., the Cedar River crested 7.4 feet above flood stage. The river went about 5 feet higher in a 2004 flood that caused major damage in the city.

"It seems like we're having the hundred-year flood every four years. It's absurd," said Mark Dulitz, who had 4 inches of water in his basement and a ring of sandbags around his house.

Some businesses and offices were closed, including a Hormel Foods corporate office and its Spam Museum, but floodwaters were already receding by Thursday afternoon. The floodwaters did claim the life of a man whose vehicle became submerged when the road washed out from under it just west of Austin.

Flooding this week also caused damage across southern Wisconsin, where thunderstorms continued pounding the area on Thursday.

Iowa County Emergency Management Director Ken Palzkill said his county saw an "unprecedented" amount of rain Thursday afternoon. He said the village of Cobb got 3 inches of rain in an hour.

The weather service issued flash flood watches for southern Wisconsin with tornado watches in central and eastern areas. Several tornadoes briefly touched down, but no injuries were reported.

Flash flooding in Grant County in the southwestern corner of Wisconsin closed two highways and required rescues, authorities said. Three homes were destroyed and others had major damage from the flooding, which reached several feet deep in spots, according to Julie Loeffelholz of Grant County Emergency Management.

Just southeast of Grand Rapids, Mich., crews pulled the body of a motorist from a car found drifting in the swollen Thornapple River. State police said they believe the 57-year-old man called on his cell phone but didn't say what happened or where he was; they found him using global positioning equipment.

People in several northern Missouri communities, meanwhile, were piling up sandbags to prepare for flooding in the Missouri River, expected to crest over the weekend, and a more significant rise in the Mississippi River expected Wednesday.

http://breakingnews.nypost.com/dynam...P&SECTION=HOME
Copyright 2008 NYPost.com

[vansVoish]

Ben please careful. This is terrible and tragic. I hope that you are careful and stay out of harms way.

[tpdirorg]

The full story on the camp is sad in that they all did what they needed to do. It was not windswept debris or anything like that that got these kids, it was a falling over of the chimney of the building they were in.

I think this should run as a sign for improving the design standard of even the smaller constructions in the area. Put a few bars of steel in that masonry and maybe it will not topple wien a wind hits it hard. Will it save the building? No, but it was not the building that fell on these kids...



BTW, forgive my sense of irony, but Cedar Rapids is having a flood? It just struck me as ironic......

>sigh<

[Tribas4u]

Thank you JCMAN320. We did not get any rain last night and are forecasted to not get any tonight (it's a beautiful day here), so we should be alright.

However, Cedar Rapids now has other problems to worry about...

Rising water forces evacuation of Iowa hospital
By AMY LORENTZEN
Associated Press Writer

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (AP) -- Rising water from the Cedar River forced the evacuation of a downtown hospital Friday after residents of more than 3,000 homes fled for higher ground. A railroad bridge collapsed, and 100 city blocks were under water.

The hospital's 176 patients, including about 30 patients in a nursing home facility at the hospital, were being evacuated to other hospitals in the region. The evacuation started late Thursday night and continued Friday morning in the city of 124,000 residents.

"Some are frail and so it's a very delicate process with them," said Karen Vander Sanden, a hospital spokeswoman.

Water was seeping into the hospital's lower levels, where the emergency generator is located, said Dustin Hinrichs of the Linn County emergency operations center.

"They proactively and preventatively started evacuation basically guessing on the fact they were going to lose power," he said.

Dave Koch, a spokesman for the Cedar Rapids fire department, said the river will crest Friday at about 31.8 feet. It was at 30.9 feet early in the morning. In a 1993 flood, considered the worst flood in recent history, it was at 19.27 feet.

Flooding also closed Interstate 80 from east of Iowa City to Davenport. The flooded Cedar River crosses the interstate in Cedar County, about 20 miles east of Iowa City.

No deaths or serious injuries were reported in Iowa, but one man was killed in southern Minnesota after his car plunged from a washed-out road into floodwaters. Another person was rescued from a nearby vehicle in the town of Albert Lea.

Just southeast of Grand Rapids, Mich., crews pulled the body of a motorist from a car found drifting in the swollen Thornapple River. State police said they believe the 57-year-old man called on his cell phone but didn't say what happened or where he was; they found him using global positioning equipment.

In Wisconsin, amphibious vehicles that carry tourists on the Wisconsin River were used to evacuate homes and businesses in Baraboo, north of Madison. Hundreds of people lost power in Avoca, west of Madison, and were "strongly encouraged" to evacuate because of flooding of the Wisconsin River and other streams, said Chief Deputy Jon Pepper of the Iowa County Sheriff's Department.

The rising Fond du Lac River forced hundreds from homes in Fond du Lac.

Violent thunderstorms Thursday and Friday brought widespread flooding to Michigan's Lower Peninsula that authorities say left some roads and bridges unstable or impassable.

Authorities in Mason County advised drivers to stay off the roads unless it was an emergency, and the county closed or barricaded more than a dozen roadways.

People in several northern Missouri communities, meanwhile, were piling up sandbags to prepare for flooding in the Missouri River, expected to crest over the weekend, and a more significant rise in the Mississippi River expected Wednesday.

Amtrak's California Zephyr line was suspended across Iowa because of flooding along the BNSF Railway.

Despite all the water in the town, there was precious little for toilets, cleaning, or drinking.

Koch said the city is at critical levels and only one well was operating. It was in a flood area protected by sandbags, and generators were pumping water away. Normally, the city has six or more functioning wells, he said.

"If we lost that one we would be in serious trouble. Basically we are using more water than we are producing," he said. "We really need to reduce the amount of water we are using ... even using paper plates, hand sanitizer."

Area hotels issued water warnings, including the Marriott Hotel, which issued a statement imploring guests to cut their usage and use water only for drinking.

"Any flushing of the toilet, running the sink, or showering should be kept to a minimum. We understand this is asking a lot, but anyway you may be able to assist us in this time of crisis would go a long way to avoid an even greater disaster."

Other Midwestern cities faced similar shortages: Lawrenceville, Ill., a town of 4,600 people near the Indiana line, grappled for a second day Thursday with a broken water system that left businesses with no usable tap water, forcing them to close.

Iowa Gov. Chet Culver declared 83 of the state's 99 counties as state disaster areas. Nine rivers are at or above historic flood levels.

In Des Moines, about 300 volunteers and members of the Iowa Army National Guard worked late Thursday into Friday to shore up a levee showing some soft spots north of downtown. The levee protects a neighborhood along the rising Des Moines River.

They shored up the levee with about 60,000 sandbags, and the levee was holding, said A.J. Mumm, spokesman for the Polk County Emergency Management Agency.

There are about 200 homes in the neighborhood, which is under a voluntary evacuation.

Copyright 2008 NYPost.com

[avaiftBoara]

Waters in Flooded City in Iowa Likely to Crest Soon
By CHRISTOPHER MAAG and MIKE NIZZA
Published: June 12, 2008

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa — Officials began to clear people out of downtown Des Moines and a hospital was evacuated and highway closed in Cedar Rapids on Friday as flooding in Iowa reached record levels.

Des Moines officials said the decision to clear the downtown area of residents and workers was based on new information from the Army Corps of Engineers that indicated water could reach the top of a crucial levee.

City officials described the evacuation as voluntary, but Des Moines Mayor Frank Cownie told The Associated Press that it was important “to err on the side of citizens and residents.” The National Weather Service said that one section of the Des Moines River was peaking at 35.3 feet, but would fall below its previous record, 34.3 feet, by Saturday morning.

About 100 miles southwest of Des Moines in Cedar Rapids, which had already been deluged by record-breaking floods, more heavy rain overnight further swelled the Cedar River. Forecasters predicted that the water would crest by the end of the day and begin to slowly recede over the weekend.

Officials at Mercy Medical Center hospital, fearing they would lose power, decided to send its 176 patients, including babies in intensive care and nursing home residents, to other facilities. On Thursday morning, the hospital had switched to backup generators, which were threatened by floodwaters hours later.


A flooded neighborhood in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, on Friday.

“Our hope was to continue to operate and serve our patients as we always have,” Tim Charles, the hospital’s president, said in a statement.

“Unfortunately, this has become a disaster of unpredictable and potentially catastrophic proportions.” Volunteers played a major role in the evacuation.

To the south of the city, the rising Cedar River covered Interstate 80, severing the coast-to-coast link. A day earlier, Amtrak had canceled service to Chicago on its California Zephyr line after tracks were submerged.

While the cresting of the floodwaters was good news for Cedar Rapids, the city was expected to stay wet for a while. The National Weather Service said the river would not return to its previous record depth of 20 feet, set in 1851, until Thursday. More rain may fall over the weekend, according to forecasts.

“We’ve got serious problems,” said Justin Shields, a Cedar Rapids City Council member. “And we’ve got a long way to go yet.”

Water was in short supply, and only one of six wells in the city was functioning properly. “If we lost that one we would be in serious trouble,” Dave Koch of the Cedar Rapids fire department told The A.P. “Basically we are using more water than we are producing.”

The Linn County Emergency Management Agency warned that the water shortage could last weeks. “It’s not conserve water because the world is going to be better because of it,” Dustin Hinrichs, a spokesman for the agency, told The Gazette. “It’s conserve water because we might not have any tomorrow.”

Power failures reduced the capacity of the local water treatment plant to 25 percent. At 6 p.m. on Thursday, emergency management officials announced that Cedar Rapids residents would be required to use water only for drinking until further notice.

By Friday morning, the Cedar River was about 31 feet deep, or 19 feet above flood stage, according to the National Weather Service. The water was expected to rise another seven inches by Friday afternoon, and reach a record crest.

“Usually if you break a record, you only do it by an inch or two,” said Jeff Zogg, a hydrologist for the Weather Service in Davenport, Iowa. “But breaking it by six feet? That’s pretty amazing.”

On Thursday, the white T-shirt worn by Chuck Johnson, 56, was soaked to the neckline after he waded though floodwaters to his house to retrieve garbage bags packed with clothes. “We all thought this was a good place to live because it would never flood,” Mr. Johnson said.

Most of downtown Cedar Rapids was underwater. That includes City Hall, the county courthouse and jail, all of which, in acts of civic hubris, were built on an island in the middle of the river.

“Well, the island is part of the river now,” said Mike Goldberg, the administrative services director for Linn County.

About 8,000 people have evacuated their homes, Mr. Koch said. And 5,500 were without electricity. Those whose power has been lost should expect to go without for a week or more as utility companies struggle to prevent further damage to their critical infrastructure, said Scott Drzycimski, a spokesman for Alliant Energy.

“We’ve lost most of the battles at this point,” Mr. Goldberg said. “At this point we’re just waiting for the water to crest so we can get started on recovery efforts.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/12/us...vS13hARtwUvHUA
Copyright 2008 New York Times Company

[Qeiafib]

^ We're all part of the problem if we drive and live in Suburbia.

Global warming has made a world where "natural" disasters are now daily occurrences: tornadoes, earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanos, floods, cyclones and hurricanes ... we'll be living with them as constant companions from now on.

The disaster du jour. Unfortunately I think you're right, the frequency and severity of these catastrophic weather systems seem to be increasing. I really believe that over the next 20 years we're going to see crazy changes.
I still can't believe we had a tornado in Brooklyn.

[amotoustict]

Tornaodes and floods, 2 of mother nature's most devastating acts. This is the kind of reminder Mid-Westerners have to face every day and wonder when the next one will hit. It has already been a bad year for tordanic activity and the floods in Iowa only add insult to injury.

[hacyOrgachbic]

The scale of these floods is reminiscent of the catastrophic flooding of the Missouri/Mississippi Rivers in 1993. I hope Iowans pull through. Stay dry, Benniest.

[vipluka]

Thank you piano. It's quite sad in a way because because I am around two and half hours away from Cedar Rapids/Des Moines, there is nothing I can do except watch and pray that this ends. My college campus is less than 10 minutes from downtown Des Moines so knowing that something like this can happen, so fast, is starting to scare me. And like some people have said in this thread, I fear that this going to happen again ... unfortunately.

This afternoon, hundreds of students from U of I (University of Iowa) and volunteers were in Iowa City sandbagging to keep river water from entering their campus. It's comments like this that really give people who don't live there a sense of what's happening:

“We should be done by 5 this afternoon, and then all we can do is wait,” Mason said today. “We will have done all we can.”

Let's hope this ends soon...

[rozalinasi]

There seems to be a lot of discussion about this photograph that has appeared in lots of publications including my local paper here in the UK.

My paper say's it was taken by houswife Lori Mehman of Orchard, Iowa.

There is a discussion as to the photographs authenticity HERE

Are you hearing anything Ben?

[plalleste]

I saw that picture last night in an article on the NY Post website, and it's still confusing me. Orchard, IA is no where near Little Sioux where the tornado took out this boyscout camp (~ 4 hours apart), but is in an area where a severe thunderstorm was on that night. I call it the "line of fire".

To be completely honest with you Brian, I have no idea. If I hear of anything either from our newspapers or on the television, I will post it. But until then ...

However, as the flood/river water lowers here in Iowa, people are starting to deal with huuge problems, such as THIS.

[Qahtwugc]

I hope things improve quickly, this looks awful.

[ahagotyou]

Thank you. Yes, it does, doesn't it?

Due to NO RAIN in the past couple of days (thank god!), the river has been going down in cities like Cedar Rapids, Iowa City and Des Moines, but there is still a long way to go with the repairs, etc. I can't imagine going home after the floods are gone and finding everything in my house destroyed because of water damage.