Well Sunday was a very long day.  We stayed in Colfax Iowa, about 100 miles west of the flooding in Cedar Rapids (Saturday night).  Even there, about 1 mile from our hotel, there was an entire parking lot of cars, under water.

We got up early and started driving east, got to mile marker 265, and was greeted by the state police, who told us, we needed to drive 150 miles back to Des Moine, then 50 miles north, yada, yada.

We followed the GPS, taking gravel roads, north and west.  Finally we got to Route 150, a divided four lane highway.   The east bound bridge was underwater, the west bound bridge was above water, barely.  The telephone wire on the pole next to the bridge was hitting the waves of the water.

There it was, about 200 yards of open bridge, since we were taking the back roads, we were on the OTHER side of the barricade.....  The only thing I could think of was the headline... "Stupid Dad drives van load of kids into the river".... so we moved on.  :-)

We ended up driving right straight through the middle of Cedar Rapids, it was the only place to get across the river.  My friends Jim and Denise live on a hill and they are safe.  Jim got worried when the water got to his street.   

What you need to understand is, if the water got to his street, Jim has several, i.e. LOTS of neighbors, that are completely underwater.  Everything you saw on the news is bad, if not worse.

But I will leave you on a good note.  The spirit of the Midwest is alive and well.  On Thursday night at 10:00pm, there was one water pump left for drinking water.  It needed to be sandbagged ASAP, but there were not enough volunteers.  So on the 10:00pm news the problem was announced.

Don't even start to think about how difficult it was to travel in Cedar Rapids, 1000 city blocks were underwater.... don't even think about it being 10:00pm, and people were already in bed... don't even think that 36,000 homes had lost power... by 10:30pm 1400 people, YES two zeros... showed up, and sandbagged the pump in 45minutes.

There have been no reports of looting... not a one... I am proud to call Iowan's my neighbor.

-Craig

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