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June 18, 2008
Midwest flooding
Thankfully, our location is safe from the floods that you have seen on national (and international) news. However, there are subtle reminders that we are not far removed from what is truly a natural disaster. As I drove through town yesterday, I saw trucks heading out of town towards the Mississippi carrying large quantities of concrete highway barriers. No doubt these were headed for the river to be used as traffic control or as part of a temporary flood barrier. When you see things like that heading out in the direction of trouble, you realize how close you are. Local radio stations have been broadcasting road closures and bridge closures as part of the newscasts. My weather radio woke me up yesterday with an alert for the levee breach in Gulfport.
We are approximately 40 miles from the Mississippi at Keokuk and about 45 miles from both Fort Madison and Burlington, Iowa. For a brief time, I believe all three bridge crossings were closed (and Quincy was down from 4 lanes to 2). At last report, the bridge at Burlington is still closed, Fort Madison is open, and Keokuk is advised for local traffic only. Fortunately, we have not needed to cross the river lately.
All this flooding is due to rains in northern and central Iowa a couple of weeks ago. Hence, the tributary rivers on the Illinois side are fine. (UPDATE: Let me restate that... tributaries on the Illinois side are not at record levels, and some are not even at flood stage. Some are, however, above flood stage, but nothing like those in Iowa.) This also means that while Iowa suffered from incredible floods, worse than the big flood of '93, as the water moves down the Mississippi, the effects will diminish. In '93, the Missouri and other rivers were swollen as well. This pushed the water higher at St. Louis. This time around, the major tributaries just above St. Louis (the Missouri and the Illinois) are fine. The Mississippi has a lot of room to spread out there, and so everything from St. Louis and below should stay well below the '93 levels... as long as we don't get a lot of rain.
I moved to Iowa City/Coralville in 1994 to start grad school. There were still reminders of the '93 flood around town, and lots of stories from grad students who had been through it (mostly having to do with the effects of lack of showering and confined office spaces). There were some pictures, though those were pre-digital photo and pre-Internet days. What I am seeing on Flickr and on the Press-Citizen websites are a lot worse than the pictures I saw back then. So many of my old haunts were completely underwater--over a person's head. Just incredible.
In most places, the water is receding or will be shortly. Then the cleanup begins.
Posted by William Polley at June 18, 2008 10:19 PM
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Comments
Maybe all this flooding is karma getting these people back for blindly following George Bush!
You must now pay the price.
Posted by: Bob Abooey at June 19, 2008 08:55 AM
Nice commentary, Bill. Thanks for posting it.
Posted by: EclectEcon at June 19, 2008 06:14 PM