Flooding in Iowa...

[Muzza]

Kiwi and I have watched the news on TV and read reports in the Newspapers of serious flooding in Iowa as well as Kansas, Missouri, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan, Illinois and Indiana.

Are any board members affected by this either directly or indirectly. We have been concerned at the devastation and damage let alone the impact on people's lives.

Hope everyone is OK.

Muzza and Kiwi

[julesberry]

We had about 5 inches of water in our basement the night of June 7th and spent about 3 hours sweeping it out the basement door since we did not have a sump pump. First thing Sunday morning we went and bought a sump pump and dehumidifier. 2 hours later we had another severe thunderstorm and we had to use the sump pump to keep up with the water rushing in. Luckily we don't keep much in the basement and our washer and dryer are fine. We have a pond in our backyard that is fed from Pewaukee Lake, some people may have seen that flooding on the news as the helicopters have been in our backyard for the last week. About 20 feet of our yard is under water and one pier is underwater and the other has a couple of sections that are floating away. The beach about an 1/8 of a mile down the street has been wiped out and there the Lake continues to overflow into the street. My heart goes out to the farmers who have lost their crops and to the people who had to be evacuated from their homes and lost valuable or sentimental items from this flooding. We consider ourselves lucky after seeing the devastation others are encountering. And we thank God that it is finally supposed to be dry weather, at least until the end of this week.

[mellie]

Jules - once all of your water recedes, we'll have to compare notes. About 25'-30' depth of my lot was under about 3' of water for only 24 hours from Friday to Saturday. The current was hard and fast, and the soil erosion is heartbreaking to see. For the past three weeks I had spent practically every waking minute away from work clearing rocks, cutting down grass and weeds, hauling tree branches to cut into campfire wood, and raking. Now the whole area is full of even more rocks and branches than before I started. The only water getting into the house is leaking down a pipe in the wall where the builder didn't seal it well at the roofline. I'm really thankful it isn't worse. I'd come and help you clean up if I could.

[Billy K.]

It is eerie and surreal seeing this stuff happening in the midwest...

[Tim From Wisconsin]

Yea - It's been almost "Biblical" the way the rain has fallen the last week or so! I live in a second floor apartment, so I've been dry...and the basement of our buiding where our storage units are remained dry as well - Whew. I've been helping my parents bail out though, as they got a bunch of water in their basement. There are some cities in Wisconsin that got hit much worse than where I live though, with dams breaking and rivers overflowing - It's crazy!

Tim

[Ecstasy]

Annie has been getting email updates from the camp she works at (Wisconsin) saying that portions of it have been flooded out but they're still running the camp programs so far this summer.

Over the weekend John and I were away in Galena, Illinois which is only 15 miles from the Iowa border. We were getting hit with some of their rainstorms. The only thing on the news was all of the devastation there. There's a call out to surrounding states to donate drinking water and other necessities. We were talking to one couple who was from Cedar Rapids who said that their usual routes have been closed and that it would take hours to go through the re-routed roads. I wondered if they would have a house to go home to. Certainly not from what we were seeing in Cedar Rapids! Emergency broadcasts (and they were NOT tests!) kept going off on tv and radio all around us as the next wave of storms were due.

[Laura]

We're having some flooding around our area, but we live pretty far away from the river, so we only had a little leaking in our basement when the rain was the hardest.

Wisconsin Dells (Lake Delton) which is about 2 hours away, is where the houses fell into the lake. Lake Delton is a man made lake that feeds into the Wisconsin River. There were only earthen dams and with all the rain, they broke. Drained the lake almost dry. And since they don't live in a flood plain, they were not elegible for flood insurance from the federal govt.

I live near the Rock River, which feeds into the Mississippi. My understanding is that we may still see more flooding because the rain up north will continue to come south. It's not supposed to rain again till Friday (according to the forcasters)

[Julie]

We have had our share of rain here where I live in North-west-central Iowa. There has been some flooding, but nothing like around Cedar Rapids. A lot of our fields are flooded and we've lost some of our crops.

On another note, my parents live about 15 miles from the Little Sioux Boy Scout Camp. That has been just awful. I have lots of relatives who are on the volunteer rescue squad that were the first on the scene and they have been deeply affected by the tragic loss of life among the scouts, but just as deeply impressed by the wisdom, strong character and caring shown by the scouts toward each other.

Blessings,

Julie

[sterling]

I live in Rockford, IL which is on the Rock River. I was on both sides of the river today. One place was the Burpee Museum where I am taking a class. It was high and covering some steps. Later I was across the river and it was almost up to the bikepath on the East side. The current in the Rock River is moving very fast.

Laura, I would think that Beloit Memorial H.S. with as close as it is to the Rock River has got to have problems. The football field is right next to the river. In Machesney Park just north of Rockford, there is some bad flooding and I saw boats rescuing homeowners on Sunday. They are taking some people to Harlem H.S. to stay but I understand the numbers are decreasing.

Phil

[JuliaD]

The daughter of one of my coworkers lives in Cedar Rapids. She lost everything but her dog and her car. She's on her way back to PA now to live with her mother again and try to get back on her feet.

My city had very odd weather today, I honestly thought we were getting a tornado, the wind was blowing everything off peoples porches and yards, and cars coming down the street were swerving to dodge debris. The sky was black and it was only 5 PM. We got some rain, but really, not even enough to soak the ground. Then it got really calm, *nothing* moved, not even a leaf on a tree. Then we got a little more rain, and that was that.

[Ecstasy]

Julie --- I'm so sorry to hear that you're having a loss of crops. What is projected for the weeks ahead?

Julesberry and Mellie --- I hope your properties will be safe and recover as well. Is there anything you need to do?

Laura --- Beloit is not too far from Annie's camp (Phantom Lake YMCA Camp in Mukwanago). Have you heard anything about what's going on there as well?

[Laura]

I know there is some flooding in Milwaukee, but I haven't heard anything from Mukwanago. That's actually closer to Milwaukee than to me. I've heard of some flooding in Waukesha, which is to the northeast (I think) of Mukwanago.

Sterling, they have sandbagged the high school. It is right on the river. They had to move the post office over to one of the elementary schools because it was too close to the river. I went down there Friday and the road was all flooded. Now they say they actually have water in the post office, so they moved out.

[Laura]

Julie, that was so sad about the Boy Scout Camp. No one can be prepared for a tornado. I was hoping you were ok, Iowa had been hit much worse than Wisconsin. (Although it's pretty bad here,too.

[julesberry]

Mukwonago is about 18 miles from Pewaukee, WI. They have been watching the dam on Phantom Lake since last Tuesday when it became clogged from bog vegetation. From what I understand the water level has since dropped.

Mellie, your situation sounds worse than ours as we don't have rushing waters, just creeping water levels. We have alot of carp that have landed in our yard and we have alot of turtles sunning themselves on the pier that is still intact.

All we can really do now is pray for a dry stretch of weather.

I pray for the Boy Scouts and the farmers.

[Bessieboo]

My Husband works for the Boy Scouts, he flew out there as part of the National Boy Scout Support team, he came home last night. He has a hard time dealing with the death of kids.

It is so sad because the boys did everything right, sometimes it just isn't enough.

There will be tornado shelters built in that camp to honor the boys who died and to those who were hurt. There is simply no way to do this at every camp.

We prepare for hurricanes but tornado's are very different.

The farmers have had rough time let's pray they have enough time and money to replant when the soil dries enough to get the tractors in the fields, I hope their top soil isn't washed away.