Addison's Diary: Iowa? ...is rife with imprecise information and some really useless bickering. Below the fold I've put a blog post from a Board that should clue everyone in to the magnitude of the situation.
It's devastating. A flood of such magnitude that there are simply no plans for it.
But this is also an incredible opportunity. Please read on...
Twenty-five miles up the road from us, Cedar Rapids is, by amazing coincidence, located along the Cedar River. Its flood stage is 12'. During the historic flood of 1993, the river reached a record high of 19.3'. Today the river level is 29.9' and the forecast is that the river will crest at 32'.
Electrical service is out to almost all of downtown Cedar Rapids, most of which is seriously flooded, and the utility company announced today that whoever doesn't power now probably won't have power restored for one-to-three weeks.
As many as fifty thousand people along the Cedar River and its tributaries have been evacuated. Hospitals are now being evacuated. Thankfully, all the animal shelters in the area have been evacuated.
Here in Iowa City, located along the Iowa River (again by miraculous coincidence), the river's flood stage is 22'. During the amazing and historic flood of 1993, the river reached a record high of 28.5'. Today the river level has climbed to 29.1' and the forecast is that the river will slowly rise until about a week from now until it crests at 39'. That's seventeen feet above flood stage.
http://forums.ebay.com/...
I will now violate fair use (although the original post is much longer):
Of course, this prediction is based on the outflow of the Coralville Reservoir, which dams the Iowa River about five miles upstream (as the crow flies). And the news from the Army Corps of Engineers tonight isn't great. The maximum controllable outflow of the Iowa River through its normal gated outlet at the reservoir's dam is about 22,000 cubic feet per second (cfs). When there is more water than that, it begins to overflow the dam's spillway -- which has only happened once before, in 1993 -- and the Army Corps of Engineers no longer has any control of outflow. During the Great Flood of '93, the total discharge (outlet plus spillway overflow) from the Coralville Reservoir hit 28,200 cfs.
Tonight, it was announced that the total discharge from the reservoir is expected to exceel 42,000 cfs.
As our local officials say, we're in uncharted territory here. Never in the state's recorded history has this catastrophic level of water been seen, and truly, no one has ever planned for such flooding.
Will Bush do anything about this?
No. He. Won't.
Can we do anything about this?
Yes. We. Can.
What does our Senator have on the ground - in Iowa, and in the surrounding states?
I'll tell you what he's got: enough people, enough transportation and enough communication to make Vice President Al Gore's valiant efforts in the aftermath of Katrina look like a stroll in the park.
Iowa is in dire straights, and it needs us to care and to do something.
And if there is one state that Obama owes big - I mean really big - it is Iowa.
How many bodies could be mustered for search, rescue and cleanup - out of Obama's existing organizational structure? How much food could we bring (they won't have any before too long...)? How much water?
I know it's the beginning of the most important election of the past 50 years... OK - let's mull that over.
What would the political ramifications be, if Obama put 40% of his mid-western organization to work, helping out the state that helped him probably more than any other?
Is there a downside to that?
I'll go. Hell, I'm going anyway...