Just wanted to share a video of some of the disaster that took place this summer in Iowa. This video is about the city of Cedar Rapids where part of my family lives. Its a pretty long video, but in the first couple minutes you can really get a feeling for how bad it was!!!

http://metro-studios.com/recovery/

 

It really is crazy what water can do, here is one i made of waverly http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgQqoL2MvVc I should do one of parkersburg/ New Hartford tornado, I have alot of family from that area also.

 

Amazing vids. terrible losses, how is the clean up going?
The water really comes up fast in the flatlands. Here in my area we have flooding everyspring and fall. The river through my town can go from 17' to 30 in a matter of days. The people that live in the lower areas build on stilts, and like it that way. The town itself is built on a bluff that has never flooded in my lifetime.
My land is considered swampland. But my house is on a higher elevation. If it floods, FEMA wouldn't be able to help. The whole Mississippi Delta would be underwater.

Best wishes!

 

That was one crazy summer! On Father's Day weekend the GF's bro and I were headed to Sussex IA to drop off a Yota he sold on Ebay. We ended up getting detoured off 80 before we even hit IA and took some crazy gravel roads. When we finally got on a main road I think it was HWY 34, The F-350 broke down on us and we were stranded in Galveston. The people there were in a mad frenzy trying to move all their stuff out.

 

The clean up is pretty well done in my town anyways, there is just alot fixing and rebuilding going on. We do construction on the side i have been working on a house where the foundation caved, pretty crazy. My parents just got their place back together it was 4 months to the day that they finished.

 

Odd, for some reason (Which I can't place...) the people there seemed to work together, remain positive, not blame others, or kill each other.

Any guesses anyone?

 

Well there was alot of blameing going on during the event, the city said the river level would be only a few inches higher then the 16.8 ft level of the flood of 1999, but they were wrong it end up being 19.1 or so. The problem is our city officials new that another town about 30 min north of us got 2ft more water then the 1999 flood, they are upstream for us so guess how much more we got? 2 feet! They had atleast 24hrs notice, it really pissed alot of people off. I guess I understand both sides, all i can say is if it floods this bad again we plan on sand bagging alittle but water will find its way in if it wants too.

 

Right, but did the inhabitants of the city end up using the event as an excuse to blame the government for everything? Was there rampant looting? Shooting? Murders? Did crime go through the roof?

For some strange, strange reason I would be willing to be it didn't....unlike a certain other flooding event that took place. Strange...

 

Well its not the governments fault the town flooded! and thats a negitive on the looting, riotting, killing.

 

People just get pissed when information is kept from, they would have rather been over prepared then under.