Jay Honeck
Touchdown! Greaser!
Iowa City is now effectively cut off, with I-80 closed to the East (see aerial pix taken today, in the link at the bottom), I-380 closed to the North, Hwy 218 closed to the South, and over 30 streets under water in the city.
We've got the river flowing over the road both North and South of our aviation themed hotel, the Alexis Park Inn & Suites, so we are effectively out of business. (We're still dry, and open -- but no one knows that, or can drive past. You can still get here, via a back road -- but who knows that?) No fly-in guests can get from the airport to us without fording the river (or driving five miles around the airport), and everyone is flying OUT of Iowa City anyway.
All the businesses around us are padlocked and closed, behind sandbag walls. One block North, all the businesses are under water. The University of Iowa has over a dozen buildings under water and has canceled all activities until further notice, taking many of our future reservations with them.
We relocated our airplane to nearby Washington, IA (AWG), when the airport looked like it might go under. The river is now running between us and the airport, but the airport is still mostly dry, thankfully. Our home on the East side is high and dry, and we're still able to get to it, thanks to the city workers doing a Herculean job to keep the bridges open. They've lost all but two of them (and one is down to just one lane), but the city isn't split in half, yet.
Up at the dam, the water over the spillway has crested, but the reservoir is still receiving 10,000 cubic feet per second MORE than can be released over the spillway. That's enough water to fill our hotel's swimming pool every TWO SECONDS -- so this event is far from over. We're talking weeks, if not months of continued flooding and clean up.
Cedar Rapids' flooding was worse, but it's receding quickly, because that was an entirely different kind of flooding, caused by excessive rain overflowing a river. Our flooding in Iowa City is caused by excessive rain overflowing a giant reservoir that drains a whopping 3,300 miles of Iowa! Because of this, nothing will change quickly, and we're looking at a very long summer.
I was privileged to receive a private tour of the dam yesterday afternoon, courtesy of an old friend who works for the Army Corps of Engineers. He brought us right up to the edge of the spillway and sluice gates, and you simply couldn't believe the roar of 40,000 gallons of water per SECOND thundering over that dam! Watching in awe, we at last fully realized why we were so royally screwed downstream. There is no way to fathom the destructive nature of that much water until you see it. (Check out the video in the link, below...)
Today we took an hour long flight over the disaster area, and the full weight of the catastophe became apparent from 2500 feet. It's incredible to see the Iowa River expand to the size of the Mississippi River, without regard to man-made structures that might be in the way. And it's that way as far as the eye can see down-river!
Stranger still is to fly down I-80 -- "America's Main Street" -- and see NO ONE on it. To see the Cedar River washing over the freeway for at least 1/4 mile is just incredible, and something I never would have thought possible.
It's a remarkable thing to live through a "500 year flood" -- and were it not happening to me and impacting our business, it would be fascinating. Instead, it's kinda like watching a barge heading toward a bridge abuttment, knowing there's nothing you can do to stop it. Pray you don't ever get to see it.
Here are the pix and video:
http://www.alexisparkinn.com/great_flood_of_2008.htm
We've got the river flowing over the road both North and South of our aviation themed hotel, the Alexis Park Inn & Suites, so we are effectively out of business. (We're still dry, and open -- but no one knows that, or can drive past. You can still get here, via a back road -- but who knows that?) No fly-in guests can get from the airport to us without fording the river (or driving five miles around the airport), and everyone is flying OUT of Iowa City anyway.
All the businesses around us are padlocked and closed, behind sandbag walls. One block North, all the businesses are under water. The University of Iowa has over a dozen buildings under water and has canceled all activities until further notice, taking many of our future reservations with them.
We relocated our airplane to nearby Washington, IA (AWG), when the airport looked like it might go under. The river is now running between us and the airport, but the airport is still mostly dry, thankfully. Our home on the East side is high and dry, and we're still able to get to it, thanks to the city workers doing a Herculean job to keep the bridges open. They've lost all but two of them (and one is down to just one lane), but the city isn't split in half, yet.
Up at the dam, the water over the spillway has crested, but the reservoir is still receiving 10,000 cubic feet per second MORE than can be released over the spillway. That's enough water to fill our hotel's swimming pool every TWO SECONDS -- so this event is far from over. We're talking weeks, if not months of continued flooding and clean up.
Cedar Rapids' flooding was worse, but it's receding quickly, because that was an entirely different kind of flooding, caused by excessive rain overflowing a river. Our flooding in Iowa City is caused by excessive rain overflowing a giant reservoir that drains a whopping 3,300 miles of Iowa! Because of this, nothing will change quickly, and we're looking at a very long summer.
I was privileged to receive a private tour of the dam yesterday afternoon, courtesy of an old friend who works for the Army Corps of Engineers. He brought us right up to the edge of the spillway and sluice gates, and you simply couldn't believe the roar of 40,000 gallons of water per SECOND thundering over that dam! Watching in awe, we at last fully realized why we were so royally screwed downstream. There is no way to fathom the destructive nature of that much water until you see it. (Check out the video in the link, below...)
Today we took an hour long flight over the disaster area, and the full weight of the catastophe became apparent from 2500 feet. It's incredible to see the Iowa River expand to the size of the Mississippi River, without regard to man-made structures that might be in the way. And it's that way as far as the eye can see down-river!
Stranger still is to fly down I-80 -- "America's Main Street" -- and see NO ONE on it. To see the Cedar River washing over the freeway for at least 1/4 mile is just incredible, and something I never would have thought possible.
It's a remarkable thing to live through a "500 year flood" -- and were it not happening to me and impacting our business, it would be fascinating. Instead, it's kinda like watching a barge heading toward a bridge abuttment, knowing there's nothing you can do to stop it. Pray you don't ever get to see it.
Here are the pix and video:
http://www.alexisparkinn.com/great_flood_of_2008.htm
