CR flood, downtown, Tuesday

Yesterday I explored downtown for the first time since Thursday. (That day, my hip waders weren't high enough to keep the water out. Yesterday, I was ankle-deep in flood muck at times, but I was dry and relatively clean, compared to some of the workers.)

An Uncle Sam incarnation of American Gothic stands guard over the Freedom Festival office as water pumps in the street empty out basements.


The Paramount's Wurlitzer organ was toppled over in the flood, and the orchestra pit cover lifted onto the buckled stage. The percussion instruments managed to be moved to higher ground before the flood, but the organ wasn't so lucky. This is a local treasure that I'm sure many people hope will be salvaged and restored. (Also: theatres lit with a single open door become even more dramatic in photographs.)


City Hall seems to have escaped major damage, and the Grant Wood stained glass (another local treasure) is intact.



This tablecloth from Zins reminds me of learning how to print in the darkroom in high school.. we could place object on the paper and expose the paper to light, leaving white spaces where the objects were. In this case, the silverware and napkin left their mark as the mud settled around them.


The king at Little King Deli helpfully points out the high water mark on the side of the restaurant. It's well above my head.


The Piano Lounge hopes to salvage some of their steel furniture. Barstools were lined up along the street to dry.


Down in the lounge, which is in a basement, employees and volunteers were wading through the muck (a mixture of liquor, ceiling tiles and floodwater, I'm guessing) to remove the furniture.

CR flood, Czech Village

Since they couldn't continue in the residential area of Czech Village, the team made their way to the business district of the village. The streets were littered with antiques from the antique stores on 16th Avenue.

CR flood, Czech Village homes

As I walked with strike team, I would occasionally wander off a bit to photograph the damage to the homes in the Southwest Cedar Rapids Czech Village neighborhood. Obviously, this is just a glimpse of what we'll see in the weeks to come as the water continues to go down.

This garage had floated down the street and bumped up against this house. Water lines on the homes show you how far the water has gone down, but there's still quite a bit left.


Someone is missing a back deck.. and a rather nice one, at that. It looks like the water picked it up and deposited it in this front yard, nearly intact.


Washed-out basements were startlingly common in some neighborhoods.

CR flood, Strike Team, Monday

I woke up at dawn Monday to meet up with the teams assembling to check homes for structural damage and potential occupants who stayed behind (and sincerely hoping not to come across any DOA's). (I had gone out with them Sunday as well, but Monday we went to a much harder hit area. So Sunday will the the missing day from this series of posts.) Because these areas are still on lockdown, going in with these strike teams gives us the first look at the damage, a day before the areas are opened up for residents to come back and begin the long process of cleaning up.

A search and rescue dog went along with each team. Talyn was pretty much the coolest dog ever.. he kept depositing sticks at our feet, waiting for us to throw them. The team members would do a search of the perimeter of the house, looking through windows to check on the floor before they would decide to force entry into the home. Electric and gas company workers were also part of the team, making sure utilities were shut off at each house.



Homes marked with an X are safe to reenter. Homes with a box and a line are unsafe.



At C Street SW, the water was too high for the team to continue working. Until a block is dry, they can't tell if the homes are safe or not. While not knowing the status of their home is incredibly frustrating for the residents, these teams are doing what they can to ensure that returning to the homes is safe. Several homes have lost parts of their foundation, or parts of their floor, so those homes aren't being cleared for reentry.

On the Senate floor

Senator Tom Harkin used some of our photos in a presentation to the US Senate today. Harkin's office sent us a screen grab of the senator using my photo of May's Island and downtown in the presentation. Neat!

CR flood, Friday

Photo intern Courtney Sargent and I were on the early flood shift.. I had been on the west side of town for two days, where residences seem hardest hit, so I handed that side off to Courtney while I began walking the east side of the river. What we encountered was.. a real slowing-down. The river was expected to crest Friday afternoon (and it did, above 31 feet, well above the 20-foot record, and five feet above where it was expected to crest), so now it's mostly a matter of waiting. I climbed to the top of the Mercy Hospital parking garage (four flights of stairs in chest waders is a great workout, by the way) to check out the scene from above, then took the wrong door down and ended up in the hospital, where they were setting up sump pumps to keep the ground floor as dry as possible. The hospital had been evacuated over night.



After getting back to the office and filing, I headed up in GazComm president Chuck Peters' Cessna for a view of the flooding from above. I alternated between being utterly astounded at what I was seeing, and wishing I hadn't eaten such a big breakfast.

Cedar Rapids from above... you can see that all of our bridges are impassible, except the interstate bridge, which is down to two lanes to allow emergency crews through.



Most of Palo is under water.. we have been unable to get there for a couple days now because the roads leading into town are under water. This photo is only one small part of town..


The Iowa River is also flooding right now, and hasn't reached its crest yet. You can see its border snaking through the trees. The farmland and forest near the river have been swallowed by the backwaters as the river nears the Coralville Reservoir.


The reservoir overflowed the spillway earlier this week, meaning there is now no control over its flow. A levee was breached along the Coralville strip Thursday night, leaving the main business district under water.


Iowa City's City Park is right along the river, and is now completely under water. The merry-go-round was a bright spot amidst the muddy floodwater.



I've run out of adjectives.

yesterday's paper...

...was incredible. And I'm not just saying that because my photo ran two pages wide on a two-page wraparound cover.. as I look through yesterday's edition, I continue to be impressed with the work our staff pulled off without power and without being able to get much of anywhere in town with so many road closures. We have emergency generators running the essentials, snails-pace internet allowing us to keep our website up-to-date, and a headlamp hanging in the newsroom for those who venture out to the port-o-potties on the roof of the garage (we're without water, too).



Really. Our staff is producing incredible work, to the point that Friday's paper sold out all over town and had to go for a special reprint. Our new editor started Tuesday, and wrote a column about our efforts as a staff here. We have a long few weeks (months, even) ahead as we continue to cover this story.

Flood prep

Going back in time a bit to Tuesday and Wednesday's preparation for the flood..

I spent Tuesday in Iowa City and Coralville photographing people getting ready for the flood. The river was already at least two feet deep in the backyards of homes on Normandy Drive in Iowa City, but the sandbagging continued, with a lot of help from volunteers. Below, the Iowa City High cross country camp came out to help. I'll probably say this several more times in the course of covering this story, but, I'm so impressed with the generosity of strangers.


At 3:30 a.m., I awoke abruptly to the sound of my work cell ringing. Czech Village was being evacuated due to the rapidly rising water. (For the record, I had been warned that this was a possibility.. but I still went to bed Tuesday hoping it wouldn't happen.) I got to the village within 10 minutes of getting the call, half-dressed but fully awake, and not knowing what to expect at all. Most residents were already gone, due to the urgency of the evacuation. A few stragglers remained, including a few brave souls in trucks much more capable of handling the floodwater than my little Corolla.


These two families were unsure if they were included in the evacuation; while police officers had come to their homes telling them to leave, they still had gas (unlike the houses in the evacuation area), and were on higher ground. These homes are under water now, after a few levees broke on the west side of the river.


I filed three photos by 5:30 a.m., and headed back out to look for more as the sun rose over the village.


The 80-plus year-old facilities manager, left, and owner, right, of the Village Bank and Trust were sandbagging the doors into the bank. Again.. I'm almost certain that this is deep under water now.


I stalked some city streets crews around some dangerous (or soon to be dangerous) intersections, knowing that they would be closing roads soon. A few roads were already closed by this point, making two of the bridges across the river impassable. Now, the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 8th, 12th and 16th Avenue bridges are all deep under water, leaving us with only the interstate to get across the river.


The Time Check neighborhood is near one of the levees that broke Thursday. I spent time with police officers as they canvassed the neighborhood for the mandatory evacuation, then photographed people beginning to move out. A group of volunteers from a construction company helped move out a couple's refrigerator.


The streets were already above my ankles in some places Wednesday afternoon.


After taking this photo, I walked up to the levee. The next day, I parked 13 blocks from the levee and still had to move my car to get away from flash flooding. I had no idea how bad it would get, and, after flying over the flood zones today, I still can't believe it.

CR flood, Thursday

This is slightly out of order, since I plan to share pre-flood coverage tomorrow or over the weekend. But. I want to go ahead and share some photos from today's flooding. Cedar Rapids is in the midst of what is being called the worst flood in CR's history. Perhaps thousands of homes are affected, but I don't think we'll know that until the water recedes. Wednesday I was able to walk right up to the levee in the Time Check neighborhood (which would be considered 1st Street NW); today (Thursday, since I'm writing this late), I parked on 13th Street, and eventually had to leave because of flash flooding caused by heavy rains. It's a fine line to walk for journalists: do our job, or stay safe. It's not always a one-or-other situation, but today, I did have to make that decision.

My day started when I got a call about a levee break downtown. I never did find the levee, but I did find this abandoned car..


After filing some early photos, I headed to Time Check, one of the neighborhoods hardest hit. Just Wednesday, I was walking 6th Street (which was completely dry at the time) with some police officers as they alerted residents to the mandatory evacuation. These photos were taken at about 11th or 12th Street. The levee was breached in two places near this neighborhood, causing the water to rise rapidly, and leaving some residents stranded. (7th thru 13th Streets had been warned that there was a slight possibility, but only up to 7th was included in Wednesday's evacuation. Still, many residents outside the evacuation area were already packing up Wednesday.) I was amazed by the volunteers that live on higher ground, but came to the flooded areas with boats to help out.



This woman alerted firemen to a 95-year-old trapped on the second floor of his home. She was crying as a volunteer placed the man's dog in her arms and the firemen brought the man to safety.


After filing photos from Time Check, we slowly made our way to the edge of Czech Village; we had to take some creative side roads to get here, since nearly every major route in was closed by the National Guard. In the span of four or so hours, the river rose a long block and a half, to about waist deep at the speed limit sign, and impassable well in front of the car (I know.. I tried. I made the best $40 investment of my life when I bought chest-high waders.)



On the way back into town, the interstate was reopened but moving slowly.. slow enough for me to pull over a few times to take photos of the scene below. The photo at the top of this post is of May's Island, our City Hall. There are usually three bridges visible, and yesterday, the river was several feet below the retaining wall at City Hall. The speed at which it's risen is startling.


As exhausting as this is (my first day covering Cedar Rapids, I was awoken at 3:30 a.m. when Czech Village was evacuated), once we're off work the flood is still all we can talk about. Will the Gazette be evacuated? How will we put out the paper if the office is flooded? Is our printing press going to flood? Adding to that, on the radio tonight (AM 600 has been an incredible source of information) they said there's danger of CR running out of water.. which means my shower today was probably the last for a few days. I'm incredibly fortunate that my house is safe for now.. we're on an incline from the river, and I live on the second floor. So all of you can stop worrying, for now. (Honestly, I doubt it will make it this high. So really. Stop worrying. Though I do appreciate the concern.) I continue to be astounded at the sheer volume of water; seeing familiar landmarks, completely submerged in water; driving over the river on the 380 bridge and being unable to see any other bridge into town; downtown completely dark after losing power overnight... it's all surreal to me. So often, we cover events that don't affect us personally. Flooding in Olin earlier this spring, tornadoes further north, the immigration raid.. and we always have to be sensitive to the fact that we're out of our element, and that it could seem that we're taking advantage of someone's tragedy for our gain. But this is home. And it's a completely different experience, to cover a disaster at home. But even though I'm exhausted (physically and mentally), sunburned, continually wet, hungry, thirsty.. it's amazing to cover a story like this. This is history in the making.. and I'm there, waist-deep in floodwater (with my waders on, of course), documenting it.

All this, and the river still hasn't crested..

tornado / tribute

I do have a full post on last week's tornado coverage in the works (or, if not 'in the works,' at least on my mind). In the meantime, here's something I found at Michael's Trucking in Hazleton.. look familiar?