The Flood of 2008

The first picture is how our City Hall looked prior to the flood. The second (looking North) is pre-flood May Island, housing the Linn County Jail and Courthouse, Memorial Coliseum and City Hall. Visible in the picture (looking North) are the 3rd, 2nd and 1st Avenue bridges and I-380 with the 5-in-1 dam underneath. The third picture is what our May Island looked like even before the river had crested.

At the end of May we started experiencing extreme severe weather and heavy rains all over the state. We had just endured the tragedies of the loss of life and property from an EF5 tornado that hit Parkersburg and an EF3 in Little Sioux, Iowa. Then the massive rains from up north signaled that we would be bracing for a flood.

We expected a “100 Year Flood” and that would have been bad enough. What we got was a “500 Year Flood”, effecting more city blocks that we ever could have imagined. That number ranges from 500 and 1000, depending on which source you are relying on.

These pictures are two different neighborhoods on opposite sides of the river, and, sadly, is representative of what many neighborhoods look like.

Here are two views of downtown Cedar Rapids. This first is looking south on 2nd Street SE. The second picture is looking east on 1st Avenue, our city’s main thoroughfare.

Power was lost all over the city for several days. Then water was rationed to “drinking only” orders. And it continued to rain and rain and rain. Then creeks and streams started to flood all over Iowa, closing many roads to and from them. Not only could we not get across town, we couldn’t get out of it. It finally became a reality: You can’t get to there from here.

The Cedar River’s normal flood stage is 12 ft. It crested at 31.1 ft. on Friday, June 13.

The river cuts through the center of town and is spanned by many bridges. All of them were engulfed by the river and only the I-380 bridge remained open. The traffic was backed up for miles on major city streets all over town, trying to get to this one remaining link to the other side of town. A normal 10 minute trip was now taking several hours.

Below is our historic railroad bridge that collapsed. It had been weighted down with hopper cars filled with rocks, hoping to stabilize the bridge, but it collapsed anyway.

But the good news is, those weighted cars probably kept it in place and for a very good reason:

It caught all of the houseboats floating down from Ellis Marina.

The devastation was incredible and heartbreaking. And the toll is enormous. Twenty-four thousand people were displaced and many of those will not have a home to return to. They also lost anything they couldn’t carry with them when the mandatory evacuation was called for. Many businesses will not reopen. Pets were lost or died in the homes they couldn’t get out of.

Our city and county services were almost wiped out because they are all in the flood plain: Linn County Sheriff, CR Police Station, Linn County Courthouse and Jail, City Hall, Memorial Coliseum, CR Main Post Office, CR Main Fire Station, Federal Building, and Public Library to name a few. They’ve ether had to close or set up temporary offices elsewhere. We lost two ethnic museums and many family businesses that had been operating for over 100 years.

Thank God for the Iowa National Guard, Cedar Rapids Police and Fire Department personnel and the countless volunteers. They all worked around the clock unselfishly to assist the flood victims.

After a few days the power came back on and water restriction was changed to odd/even house numbers to alternate days of moderate water usage. That meant showers, some laundry, toilet flushing and hand washing could resume.

Now the waters are receding and the bridges are slowly opening. We got our first look at the city last night. Street after street is lined with gigantic plies of flood ravaged belongings that used to be someone’s life. Furniture, appliances, toys, clothing in filthy, stinking piles. Bone-weary people in obvious shock carrying out armfuls of pitiful former belongings for the garbage trucks.

Windowless businesses (that exploded from the force of the water) teemed with tired, grimy workers determined to start the cleanup.

City streets and parks were strewn with every kind of debris that the river could carry down. And the stink is incredible.

From a personal standpoint, our house is safe, although the floodwater’s edge got within two blocks of us. We only lost the refrigerator’s contents due to the power outage.

It makes me feel terrible to say that we were only mildly inconvenienced by the power outage and water restrictions, and that we lost about $100 worth of food, when there are so many people who lost everything. Our hearts are breaking for them and our town.

Ironically, the City Council, for years, has been trying to refurbish the downtown riverfront to be an attractive place where people would want to gather. They named 2008, “The Year of the River.” Well, it certainly turned out to be just that….

Here’s this week’s challenge object at PSPIZ, my online art group:

Here’s my entries:

Sometimes the challenge comes with instructions for use, but in this case, it didn’t. so I got to use my artistic license. When are you going to join us for the fun?

We had the shed custom built a few years ago and had never done anything to it other than paint it to match the house. Last summer I got busy and added some details to it.

I painted the hardware black and added some solar lanterns. I made a swag for the front doors out of wire and an artificial berry garland. I removed some old birdfeeders and added a “Grandma’s Forget-Me-Not” garden in their place. I planted some chives and honeysuckle on the side.

We were having a hard rain the day I took the “after” picture. Beautiful….

Click here to see what your town looked like in the past. Lots of postcards from all over the country! Here’s two from Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

   

Every two weeks, my online art group, PSPIZ puts up a new challenge object for us to play with, using mostly Paintshop Pro. This was the object for Challenge 388:

Meet Chipper, my sister’s dog. She’s a Boxer and she’s 3 years old. I know everyone think’s their dog is the smartest, but this one really is–and she’s not even mine, so you know it has to be true. This is her room and you can see she is color-coordinated with it….Love you, Chippy. Annie’s Girl!!

We’ve had more rain/sleet/snow this winter than any that I can remember in a long time. Two days ago we were hit with 13″–on top of the 20″ we already had!

I found this window at an antique store. I liked the charm of the size and the lead dividers. The frame was a little askew but the price was right so I bought it.

I applied a light base coat of white paint, some crackle medium and a top coat of white. Then I painted some roses on it (I’m not a flower painter, but still I liked the effect that I created.) Then I put some picture hangers on the back and hung it up. I love it!!

The Midwest got hit by a major ice storm a week ago. The entire city looked like this. Many trees and power lines were down throughout the area. We were the lucky ones. We only lost a small branch from one tree in the back yard.

That was followed by sleet and heavy snow. Travel in the city and surrounding areas was virtually paralyzed. I took this picture today at dusk. The storm was 1 week ago and the beauty in it belies the danger that still hides below the blanket of snow on the city streets and sidewalks: Two solid inches of glare ice!

I start decorating on November 1st and although I’d like to think it only takes 40-60 hours, the truth is, I don’t stop ‘futzing’ until Christmas Eve morning. Here’s a view of my kitchen from the end of my living room. And look who always manages to get his sweet little face in the pictrure. Love you, Teddy. And, yes, my whole house looks like this….Merry Christmas, all!

I spent my summer redecorating a bedroom in my house. This is what it looked like before I started.

I knew the direction that I wanted to go in but just couldn’t make it work with what I had. I had some things right, like the plaster roses running around the top of the walls. I made them with a mylar stencil and joint compound. When they were set I dry brushed them with stencil creams.
I wanted a combination of shabby chic and country garden. So I began by replacing traditional, contemporary pieces of furniture with wonderful antique finds. I then started making little accents to pull everything together. I also set a budget for myself, like they do on the decorating shows. It was fun finding inexpensive ways to get what I wanted. It also brought me back to an old love: Sewing! I hadn’t sewn since high school.

I sewed these valances to put more of the candy pink color in the room and added green lace to tie them into the green swiss dot curtains.
I found this sweet little slipper chair in an antique store for only $58!! The color, size and texture were all perfect.
The plates are all vintage and bargain finds that I’ve had for years.
I wanted one of these mirrors made from vintage salvage trim but they were too expensive. I made my own in about 2 hours and I only spent about $30!!
I bought this little unfinished birdhouse at a local craft store and hand painted it. Total cost: $3.95!!
Custom pillows are way too expensive and not even close to what I was looking for. None of the pillows cost more than $5 to make, compared to $40-75 dollars in a department store.
Chenille and awning stripe squares sewn in a rag pattern.
I made this little clutch purse pillow out of leftover valance material and some more of the awning stripe fabric. I added one of my grandmother’s vintage brooches for the clasp.
I made this pillow out of chenille and some wonderful homespun fabric that really frays for a nice ragged edge.
I had some silk-like polyester fabric for years and didn’t know what to do with it. I finally found a purpose. The button was easy to add and I just cut around the edges to make that wide fringe look.
This little pillow is made from two homespun fabrics. When washed, the two ragged edges combine to make one spectacular ragged edge.
Of course our “foreman”, Ted, was involved from the beginning to the end. Here he is inspecting the final work. I hope he issues a Certificate of Occupancy. He can be pretty picky….

All in all, I’m pretty happy with the results!

We made it! Today is our 25th anniversary!! Of course, this isn’t our final goal. We plan to go much further, God willing.

Denny, thank you for the most wonderful years of my life. I owe all of my happiness and successes to you. I love you so much.

Anna, (daughter of my good friend in New Jersey, Tom) and her fiancé, Mike, are being married on June 30. All the best to you, Mike and Anna, have a long, happy, wonderful life together!

Jessica is the daughter of my best friend of 27 years. Jess is like family to us and we couldn’t be more proud of her. Her grades were spectacular and although she could have had her choice of schools she chose to attend the University of Iowa in the fall to be closer to home.

Congratulations, Jess! We’re all busting with pride. And thanks for being such a sweet girl all these years. You do your mother proud! Have a fun, carefree summer, Kiddo, you deserve it!

Actually, they’re more like anniversarys but we celebrate their birthdays on the days they came to us. We got Nicky (on the left) from the Humane Society when she was 18 months old. Teddy was rescued off the street. We think he was about a year old then. Nicky will celebrate her 12th anniversary on May 22 and Teddy will celebrate his 12th on June 2.

They’ve lived together for all these years and still do not get along. There’s usually a cat fight a couple of times a week. I had never seen them this close to each other and couldn’t believe my eyes. I was so glad my camera was at hand.

This is my sister, Dee. She is the family baker, making fancy cakes and pies from scratch. She made this walnut spice cake for my granddaughter’s 3rd birthday. The cake is sitting on her precious depression glass cake plate. She’s quite the gardener, too. Those decorative flowers on top are nasturshams and they’re edibile. Yes, she grew them in her lovely garden.

Thanks to Donna’s blog, I found this delightful little link. Here’s my rendition of me (and my adoring entourage) with that all-so-important first cup of coffee. Mmmmmm….

Journey (or Patty, as I like to call her) was due on April 4 but decided not to arrive until April 10. She came to visit me with her mommy, Jennifer, and her grandmother, my sister, Dee today. She’s a sweet little baby and I can’t wait until she’s old enough to spend the night–about 4-1/2 weeks!

We had an unexpected snow with freezing rain and below-freezing temperatures last week. I’m sure my two beautiful flowering crab trees and my Japanese lilac tree are going to suffer this year. But after the snow melted and temperatures began to steadily increasing it got me to thinking about the new addition to my garden and how much fun the planting of annuals was going to be.

I drew up some simple plans last summer and handed them to my husband. When I awoke the next morning I went to his workshop to see how he was progressing. It was done! All we had to do was move it outside and stock it. Of course, I had to surround it with beautiful plants and bushes.

The potting bench is pickled now in a lovely sage green with all the natural grain showing through. I’ll post a picture of that if and when the bushes around it are in bloom. That darned late snow….

Click to enlarge!Katie’s birthday is coming up on April 22. She’s going to be 10! She’d love to hear from all of her fans who want to wish her a happy birthday!