Very Unhappy Stuff

Things are getting tragic out here in the heartland today. A big part of Iowa is under water (Des Moines, Waterloo, Cedar Rapids, Mason City, and other urban centers, and lots of farm land) or going to be. More rain is on the way. The governor said today that this is going to be worse than '93. And Wisconsin and Indiana are also flooding. And the worse thing that has happened was today's tornado that hit a boy scout camp in western Iowa and killed at least 4 kids and injured about 40. The news on what happened is still murky because official news is still being collected on this disaster as of midnight. I suppose all this water is going to run into the Missouri and Mississippi rivers and sock St. Louis and central Missouri just like in '93. Dejavu all over again, as Mork said. It is going to be very expensive. So far we have been through a long cold snowy winter and now a wet summer (wet is a mild term for what we have had, and I should include the tornadoes across the south and the terrible one we had in Iowa at Parkersburg.) Sticking out your chin and putting on a smiley face seems kinda silly with all the fucked up weather the US(and Burma)(and the Chinese earthquake) have had. And the shootup in oil prices is not helping anyone's disposition or finances. The Weather Channel is blaming all this weather mess on Global Warming, but that is their mantra. The trouble in Des Moines is that the original town was built on a river bottom flood plain, and after the flood of '93 everyone moved right back into the flood flats and added apartments and lofts and new office complexes where they probably should not have been built, but no one thought that there would be another "flood of the century" 15 years after the last one. That is my report on what is going on here. Brief, but it would take a volume to detail what a flood is like is this town, because you have to know the complete layout and topography of Des Moines to visualize it. Thunder is starting to roll right now, so I guess that means the predicted thunderstorm is coming in. Unlike '93 our waterworks is not flooded out yet, so unlike in '93 we should keep our water system functioning. City officials have promised that we will not lose our water. Wait and see. I am going to try to sleep through the storm tonight, because it is getting past midnight. More in the near future for you readers of this blog. I started a diary of the flood event in '93 but never got it completed. Maybe this time I can keep a running account of the flooding of '08, but everything I guess depends on what happens here day by day and night by night. You take care. Di di mau!