Samedi

An aerial photograph shows flooded area of downtown Cedar Rapids, Iowa, June 13, 2008. Interstate I-380 can be seen in the center. Floodwaters inundated about 100 city blocks of Cedar Rapids, Iowa's second-largest city. It has a population of 200,000.
Photo: Ron Mayland/Reuters

Floods swamp Iowa town; Drinking water near gone

"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."

Editilla gotta ax~Pastor Hagee?
Can I get a witness?
Om Ah Hum Hri Om Mani Padme Hum
Editilla must thank Gentle'rillas for their support and encouragement in this Ladder's coverage of the flooding upstream. For me attention to rising water whereva remains an ineluctable no'brainer, especially in light of the New Orleans News Ladder's raison d'être...to wit: what is the very last thing one might need in a flood?
I am very gratified as well in the attention and actualization paid to this National Disaster by the Nola blogger community, given many many of the citizens now now running from floodwaters upstream across the heart of our country have themselves been traveling back and forth to New Orleans to help with The Recovery of our City over the past three years. As we all had to run for our own lives, we know what it means.
Editilla also fervently hopes that this points a big middle finger at the US Army Corps of Engineers and their larger national flood control infrastructure management failures.






People were not the only creatures in need of rescue.
Cedar Rapids fire- fighter, Jeremy Wagner, saves a cat from a flooded home. Photo: Scott Olson-Getty Images



~USGS Gauge readings:
-Cedar River at Cedar Rapids, IA
-Des Moines River near Saylorville, IA

Des Moines under mandatory evacuation as levees breach
~The 100-foot-wide breach occurred about 3:45 a.m. in the city's Birdland Park area. It was spotted by people assigned to walk the levy, looking for problems.
"We have a pretty strong gush of water coming through that area," said Des Moines police Sgt. Vince Valdez.
UPDATE~ 2nd levee breached; 'total evacuation' necessary
~Des Moines Fire Capt. Tony Merrill said all emergency workers and city crews have moved out of the area around the Second Avenue breach, headed east, and that some people in the overrun area had to be forcible evacuated.
"We're on Plan B and a half," he said. "That one breach put an entire different spin on the situation." He did not know how many people resisted or whether they faced arrest. "If we can't be there, and we're emergency responders, then the public shouldn't be there either," he said

Water moved quickly after Saturday's levee breach

Des Moines: Corps plans to assess strength of taxed levee system today
Editilla screams~~Little Late There, Sparky! --Welcome to the goddamned party!
Guess this calls for another one of y'alls vaunted "Peer Reviews"?
Can we get a wit'nassss?
This photo shows the levee breach near Kiwanis River- view Nature Island, due west of New York Avenue in Des Moines, on Saturday morning.
Photo~Todd Erzen - The Register

Iowa City racing against time, water~U of I campus sand-bagging:
'This is our last effort'
Volunteers build a sandbag wall in front of the U of I’s Lindquist Center on Friday. By Friday afternoon, 19 university buildings were either taking on water or in danger of flooding.
Photo: Dave Schwarz- Special to the Register

Heroic story of books
In all the statewide stories of heroism, it would be hard to find more passion than in the snaking line going up the steps of the Main Library at the University of Iowa on the banks of the flooding Iowa River. Hand over hand; all man's ideas were handed.
Philosophy and theatre, science and religion.
Books rising from the basement to a higher level.
A student handed to a professor to a fresh-faced child.
This is Iowa City, after all, where thinking and literature are in the very blood, no less important than a homeowner's prized possession or a building's boiler.

500-year flood physically dividing Iowa City

Iowa City: Water filling Old Art Building, Art Building West

Coralville officials focus on Iowa River Landing development
-Iowa River below Coralville damn

Columbus Junction levee faces 'catastrophic failure'

Louisa County battles floodwaters; Louisa sheriff issues stern warning: Stay off Highway 99; Mandatory evacuation order issued in Oakville; Residents have until Monday

WAVCIS ~Wave-Current-Surge
Information System for Coastal Louisiana
Note~ Gentle'rillas can use these interactive sites together to study the flooding in any state: zoom WAVICS sat'view out and "curser" the Map up the Mississippi River to Indiana and Illinois and then zoom'click back down to follow the smaller rivers like the Ohio and the Iowa.
This is active data. I use the USGS maps to get oriented to the states and their flood gauges due to the lack of boundries of the sat'view. I also look up State Maps.

USGS~Flood Stage Levels current 'real-time' guage readings

FEMA Coordinating Federal Response to Midwest Storms

Upper Midwest flooding forces evacuations

The Midwest Flood~How to Make Donations To Help Flood Victims

Help Flood Victims - Donate to Hoosier Flood Relief

Flood relief - How to help
~Agencies accepting donations for their efforts to help victims of flooding in southern Wisconsin

Poseidon's Rage

U.S. Senators ask governor for early disaster declaration
~U.S. Senator Dick Durbin says he and fellow Senator Barack Obama have asked Governor Rod Blagojevich to make an early disaster declaration for the West-Central Illinois counties

Deere Says Flood Waters Have Had No Impact on Tractor Production

Flood damage reports from around Indiana

Gays Mills, WI officials ponder relocating town after flooding

Flooding problems persist for Wisconsin, even with no rain

Floods send corn, ethanol soaring~Editilla gotta ax'yaz~Have we traded in one Evil Landlord for another Evil Landlord? It is getting hard to tell the Forking Ice Hole Devils apart.

Flooding from a weather rut of clashing air masses
Hot sticky air hovers on the East Coast. Cool air is parked in the West. And when they repeatedly collide, it storms over an already saturated Iowa. This has been the stuck weather pattern for weeks and it's led to tornadoes, thunderstorms, heavy rain and eventually record flooding. Add to that La Nina in the Pacific Ocean, which some meteorologists think could be a factor. La Nina, which is the cooler side of El Nino, causes changes around the world, including more rain and snow in some of the Midwest. Even though La Nina itself is falling apart, its effects may still be felt in Iowa and Wisconsin.

Iowa Flood...
the “Katrina of the Midwest”
~Talk Radio News Service
Editilla has been waiting for this shoe to drop.
Dig the source and comments--and please do
let'em know we care, eh? Slooowly I turn...
But I would like to know what sort of context we have here now with this latest absolute National Disaster right before our lyin'eyes?

New Orleans on the Prairie
~The Beginning

Flooding leaves 20,000 homeless in Iowa city
~"This is our version of Katrina," Johnson County Emergency Management spokesman Mike Sullivan said. "This is the worst flooding we've ever seen -- much worse than 1993," when much of the Midwest was hit by record flooding.

Boy Scouts Save Iowa
~Toulouse Street~"No one should be surprised that this sort of fuckmookery has crawled out from beneath the rocks where it lives?"

Don't play politics with hurricane victims

DOD report clears Quixotic Corps in faulty pumps case

Corps of Engineers protects NOLA with duct tape, rope, and rusty pipes~Matt McBride

Announcing the New Orleans Rebirth Volunteer Center
~Le Flambeau

Celebrate the Return of the St. Charles Streetcar

Book Review: From Deep Within The Earth: Book One Of The Eternal Vigilance Series By Gabrielle Faust~Leap Inn The Dark

On the menu in New Orleans: Museum for Southern cuisine, SoFAB