Chuck, thank you for asking.
The floods are really bad this year. I don't know if you've seen any images
of Cedar Rapids, but it has that Hurricane Katrina / New Orleans look about
it. Entire expanses of a city center are engulfed in water. Something like
1200 blocks submerged. Of course, this doesn't include the thousands of
homes and business flooded out elsewhere around the state. I've been
extremely busy with the flooding as my employer is a telco with a number of
towns that have been inundated or threatened.
It's bad when entire interstates are flooded out. We had our own "Hotel
California" situation here when visiting family couldn't get out of state to
the east.
Now, onto the bad news about one of our own:
I talked with Joel Wilcox last night. We've been playing phone tag, leaving
messages on each other's phones for the past couple of weeks. He indicated
that he might write something to the list today, but I'll share a few
factoids. His house is right next to the Iowa River, just north of downtown
in Iowa City. He had to evacuate a couple of weeks ago and has since had to
evacuate to other locations! The house is flooded. How high up is not
known yet. It is a multi-level house (three or four levels, I think) and
only the top level which contains the master bedroom and his
audiofile-quality tube-amp stereo is safe. The main living level may have
extensive water damage. What is unfortunate is that prior to evacuation
(which came on quickly), they relocated a lot of stuff to that level in
hopes that it would be safe.
Joel is in need of a generator until the utilities are restored. His
electrical panels are fully submerged and hence heavily damaged. I am
attempting to score an affordable one over my way, but given the scope of
this flooding, they are hard to come by. Joel's water supply is a well (but
has city sewer), so between that and fans/dehumidifiers/power tools, he
needs to have some electricity for a while. I'll go out on a limb, but if
somebody here on the list is within a reasonable distance from Iowa and is
willing to provide a generator to Joel, it would be very appreciated. I
will travel to any edge of Iowa to help transport it to Joel. Just let me
know when and where I can meet you and I'll arrange the last miles of
transport to Iowa City. I will also be assisting him in the recovery effort
any way I can.
Judging from the river level projections, Joel will most likely not be able
to even get access to his house until Monday. The river has dropped a
little, but still remains a foot or two ABOVE the previous record level.
I also talked with Tom Scales. Obviously there is a huge issue there as he
works in Cedar Rapids, but his house is safe. Even though it is on a
heavily flooded lake, the house is located high enough above the flood pool.
Ken Norton
Zone-10.com
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