Posted on 06/18/2008 4:31:56 AM PDT by Gillmeister
We here in Cedar Rapids had the infrastructure in place. Flood stage here is 12 feet. We’d seen 20 feet back in the 1920s. The infrastructure was prepared for 22 or 24 feet of water. That seemed like ample margine.
Last week, we crested at 30.5 feet. We flooded beyond our 500 year flood plain - and we’d never had a 100 year flood.
So shut up about what the state and local government should have done. They did their job. When the water came down, local officials and volunteers did theirs. In some places, it wasn’t enough, so now our job is clean up.
We don’t blame FEMA, Bush, the Fedaral, state, or local government, God, Halliburton, or anyone else. There was just a lot of rain.
Amen...from up by Waterloo/Cedar Falls myslef.
Hands down, the answer must be England and Australia.
I would add Canada, Japan, and Israel to the list.
Has anybody spotted Lootie down there?
Here is Gordon Sinclair’s fine piece on the Americans. All the people in the flooding have our prayers and best wishes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJ_okAgAUGE
Amen. Props from Iowa City.
Having spent three months on a bagging team during the floods of 1993 I can offer some insight.
At one point as the river was Missouri was rising they told all the sandbaggers on top of the levees to put on life jackets because the levees had become mud and they could have collapsed at any moment. Everyone did so. No one left.
160,000 volunteers bagged, cooked and ran supplies during that effort.It was as close to total war as I have ever seen.
The levees finally blew out when to river crested 14 feet above the sandbags. No one had any regrets, because we gave that river one hell of a fight.
The people of Iowa are putting up a very stiff fight; they are standing their ground and they will recover quickly because of that.
God Bless you Iowa...
Isn’t there some kind of EPA rule that says if things are wet for more than 10 days in a year it is automatically declared “wetlands”?
Does this mean we need to evacuate the entire midwest so we can prserve this great national treasure... ie our “wetlands”?
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