More flood updates, for anyone who’s keeping track.

As I mentioned earlier, eastern Iowa is experience record flooding. Cedar Rapids is getting hit particularly hard, with the Cedar river flooding at roughly twice the previous record, and destroying their downtown and city hall.

Iowa City, my home, luckily does not have its downtown near the river, but the University of Iowa has the majority of its arts quad right in the current flood plane, and is getting hit pretty hard. My Dad works in the Voxman Music building, seen here:

As you can see, it’s pretty bad. The river isn’t supposed to crest until today, though they more storms yesterday, so I don’t know how that will change things. Sandbagging in continues at a frantic pace, as they are now trying to protect the UI Main Library from the increasing flood waters.

From my Dad:

Here’s some history to put it in perspective. Cedar Rapids had their worst flood in 1920 when the river crested at 20 feet. This flood was predicted to crest at 22 feet, it actually crested at over 31 today, and thankfully is now slowly receding.

Iowa City had it’s worst flood in 1993, where the Iowa River crested at 19 feet. This flood is predicted to crest at 26 feet. That’s 7 feet higher. In addition, due to bridges and other factors, the level of the river near the UI campus could be as high as 29 feet or more. It’s just mind boggling that water could get that high, but after what I’ve seen in CR, nothing seems impossible.

Most of the bridges across the river are closed. As far as I know, there is one bridge that sill allows traffic (Burlington Bridge) which may or may not close today. If that bridge closes, Iowa City is essentially cut in two, and to get from one side to the other will require an hour-long drive looping around several highways.

Above is the bridge across what used to be City Park. I have more photos from my Dad posted up in my Flickr account. It’s pretty amazing. Here’s what that bridge usually looks like:

Today, the bridge looks even worse.

More updates as I have ‘em.