Here it is June 12th, 2008 and there is flooding all over Iowa….the floods of 2008…are they worse than the Des Moines flood of 1993??  I wasn’t living in the Des Moines area in 1993, but I understand it was as bad if not worse than what I have viewed today!  I was shocked at the devastating pictures in the Des Moines Register covering towns like Charles City, Iowa City, Waterloo, Cedar Falls and Des Moines of course.  Des Moines (as well as other flood stricken parts of Iowa) made the National News (ABC, CBS, and NBC all had reporters here)…not that making national news for such tragedies is a good thing.

Last night, the local news reported on the Saylorville Reservoir.  The Reservoir was finished in 1977 to help control flooding.  There are other interesting facts about the Saylorville Reservoir found at http://www2.mvr.usace.army.mil/Saylorville/FloodFacts.cfm.  Anyway, yesterday the Reservoir released rampaging water…trying to somewhat control the flooding waters to the Court Avenue area…it was truly overwhelming. 

This flooding is effecting so many people.  Unfortunately, I’m sure we all know someone effected by the flood.  One of my relatives had fifty-eight inches of water flooding their basement as of Monday morning (they live in the Waterloo area).  Another one had to evacuate her house…as she had 12 inches of water on the main floor of her house (meaning the 8 foot basement area was over full).  I was thinking to myself, where would I even start to begin the clean up process.  I’ve had water in my basement before, but nothing like that!  I can remember when I was young (about 10 years old) and my parents woke my sister and I up to use the wet vac.  We were up for what seemed like 5 or 6 hours sucking up gallon after gallon…listening for the key sound before water came spraying out the top of the shop vac.  I became an expert real fast at knowing how fast that 5 gallon tank filled up.

Hopefully, the victims have flood insurance or homeowner’s insurance and will recover quickly.  My understanding is that very few people have purchased flood insurance though, and in most cases like this - homeowners insurance doesn’t cover policy owners for these kinds of water damage.  As Governor Culver said, “Iowans are very resilient”.   We will need to be in this case…

Stay tuned for more coverage of the flooding in Des Moines and Iowa.

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