The Floods of 2008

Last Monday, for part of our FHE, we went for a drive around the town to check out some of the flood damage. Most of the pictures I took are pretty blury because I was in a moving van, but I think you can still see some of the damage and how high the water got. We were so blessed that the flood here wasn't as bad as it was in Cedar Rapids. (Which is about two hours northeast of us, and had flooding from a different river than the one that goes thru our town.) Our drinking water and electricity styed on thru the whole thing, and since we live on a hill away from the river, our house wasn't in any harm. (Except for the pools in our yard) Anyway, enjoy the pictures. This is a business on the West side of town. They had plastic up the walls and sandbags all around the building. I don't know if there was any damage or not. This is part of the water purification plant. During the floods of 1993, the water was past the rainbow. This is the bridge that goes out from the water purification plant. They opened the gates when the possibility of flooding was being forcasted. The river went down quite a bit leaving room for the flood water to come. I think this saved a lot of the businesses that are downtown along the river. They put up a temporary levy around the water purification plant to protect it. Luckly the river didn't get up high enough for it to be used.

Another shot of the Des Moines river and the open gates on the bridge. South of town is where the river really did the damage. There was a trailer court that had to evacuate. In these pictures you can see one house under water. The water almost to the bottom of this train bridge on the south side of town.