[cactuscorn]

theres been very little discussion about how folks are doin after the floods. havin ben in cedar rapids to cover the situation for tv, my heart goes out to those whove lost somethin and in many cases, everything. i saw more than a few riders above the waterline but never had the chance to talk, just a friendly wave as we passed through the checkpoints on our way to yet another story.

id just like to hear how you guys are doin after the fact. to make sure this isnt forgotten now that the news crews have left and americas attention has once again been restored to worryin about how brittney is holdin up. i wanted to let ya know theres still folks that are thinkin of ya and know this is far from over.

if it helps, please know weve raised over 35k through some fund drives over the past week and a half that will be donated to the red cross of siouxland for use in these areas and i encourage anyone readin this to toss a few bucks at this amazin orginization for the same thing. hell, tell a friend or 2 and lets see what the mtbr family can do for our brothers and sisters whose lifes and homes have been literally swept away.

my best to ya all.

 

[Guitar Ted]

Recovery Mode

First off.....Amen! My thoughts exactly, as far as America forgetting and moving on. I knew/know this will take literally years to recover from, and then it will be radically different around here in these flooded areas.

Cedar Falls/Waterloo is in recovery mode now. We see folks to this day taking out flood damaged goods to dispose of and lot's of construction goods are being hauled about, no doubt to fix all these damaged homes. Again, my place got through this reletively unscathed, so we were fortunate.

The last of the closed roads just re-opened a few days ago. So the traffic flow through the cities of Waterloo/Cedar Falls is back to normal, finally.

Let's not forget the tornado victims in Parkersburg and New Hartford though. They are still cleaning up and beginning to build back houses that were completely wiped away. Something like 250 plus homes destroyed in P'Burg alone.

And New Hartford got the double whammy. Tornado first, which damaged much of the north side of town, destroying several homes, and then they got whomped by the flood, which pretty much took care of the rest of the city. Rumor is that they are going to scuttle the whole community and not rebuild at all!

Some other towns to keep in mind here are Vinton, whose town was mostly underwater, and poor Palo, which had to be completely evacuated and they lost everything there.

Anyway, yeah.......it is an ongoing story and this will take a long time to get settled.

Thanks cactuscorn for remembering and bringing this up.

 

[Big Jim Mac]

Yeah, when we are whining about our trails being too muddy to ride we need to consider those who lost homes -- our woes pale in comparison and there's always the road to ride on. Hang in there folks! This too shall pass. But man I wish I could find a dry trail!

 

[IAmtnbikr]

GT hit it dead on. I hope to never again see the kind of destruction we've experienced in the Midwest. We have friends in Parkersburg that were lucky to live about 3 blocks north of where everything was flattened. It reminds me of when we first moved here to Waterloo/Cedar Falls in '68. As an 8-yr old I vividly remember driving up to Oelwein after a devastating tornado in May that year. Parkersburg's aftermath looks eerily similar; like a war zone. We are so fortunate ourselves (I live about 5 blocks from where GT works ) that we live on high ground so we only had a small water issue with backup from our tile (clean water). One of the guys at where I work had flood water almost to his first floor. An ex-employee had 42" in his first floor upriver in Waverly. Many friends have similar situations. This weekend we're having our 30-yr class reunion, and we plan today to give money/gift cards to a classmate whose home in Cedar Falls has been condemned after serious flood damage. We had to move our dinner last evening to a restaurant in downtown Waterloo due to the flooding of our original location on the north edge of Cedar Falls. It's a crushing blow to see how many people are homeless and suffering. But I don't think that I've ever seen or heard of the kind of outpouring of giving and help that everyone here in our area has done to help our friends, neighbors, and even complete strangers. In time we'll look back at the terrible disasters of 2008 and probably still be in awe of what occured, and the help that arose afterwards. As to riding, I rode out on the paved trails to check out George Wyth State Park and it will be some time before many areas are ridable offroad at least. Not sure how Sugarbottom fared but it can't be much different I'd believe. Kind of sucks after I just got the new build done, but I guess that's why I have the road bike too.

 

[fastale]

Some of the people that I work with live(d) in downtown Cedar Rapids. One woman lost her home, a house that she rented out and her mother's house, but I haven't talked with her to figure out how she is fairing now. A guy that also works with me had water to the ceiling of his main floor so he too lost everything. FEMA came and I guess the way that they decide how much money you get is they measure the square footage of your house and base it off that. So if you had a huge house with nothing in it you score, a small house with really nice stuff you get f'ed. This guy is going to get $1200 to replace everything. Clothes, tools, furniture and he had just bought a $900 TV. I feel really bad for him.

I guess that they are going to provide something like 500 trailers for the displaced, kind of like how they did for the hurricane displaced in louisiana and other areas. What I think they are missing out on is that 40 degrees is winter down there. Can you imagine what it will be like to be in one of those trailers if we have another winter like this last one? Miserable.

I hope that good things come out of this whole thing. It doesn't suprise me that the people of this area are banning together for each other. It's what makes midwesterners, midwesterners. We have every right to be proud of our dedication to our family, friends and communities. A little water isn't going to get us down. Now if the damn trails would just open up.

 

[mtbidwell]

Our house was spared, but about 150 others in Clarksville were not. Many to be bulldozed much like other communities. Been spending the time helping friends out in C-ville and Shell Rock mostly. My wife headed up the EOC for FEMA as she works for Butler Co. when P-burg/ NH was hit. So her knowledge really helped speed things along when the floods hit. It is quite amazing how all of these communties have pulled together. One can't expect a group from Washington to step into any given Iowa town and know half as much as us, the people who live here. I think most realize this, thank goodness. That would be like having an estranged parent knowing what to get you for your birthday:skep:

Couple of pics of c-ville HERE. Unfortunately very few knew it was coming. No houses are in a flood plain- much like other communities.

 

[Big Jim Mac]

I had lunch with two FEMA folks today who are working the flooding in Missouri. They told me the biggest problem they are having in Missouri/Iowa is getting folks to admit they need help. Instead, they say something like "I'm OK but you should really go see my neighbors down the road, They were hit pretty hard." That's a Midwest thing -- they say it's all gimme gimme everywhere else.

 

[cactuscorn]

stay strong folks. yer still on our minds. we just sent almost 50k yer way last week and the cash is still pourin in.

 

[BruceBrown]

stay strong folks. yer still on our minds. we just sent almost 50k yer way last week and the cash is still pourin in.

Dang, we've been untouched for the entire spring/summer in terms of flooding, but last night's storm in Indianola, IA and amount of rainfall was just too much for the sump pumps to handle. We lost our basement at 4 am this morning (along with about 100 others in town).:madman:

Rainfall was 5.5" - 10" between 7pm and 4am. Too much to handle. Total loss in our finished basement. Furniture, storage, entertainment center, treadmills, exercise bikes, computer, and everything in the basement.

I guess I've got my "new" summer project chosen now....

 

[cactuscorn]

sorry to hear it bb. i hope everyone is covered and has the chance to upgrade with the ins check. tryin to put a positive spin on it ya see.

is it fall yet?

 

[Guitar Ted]

Bruce: I'm sorry to hear of this. This weather here in Iowa is relentless. It seems that there isn't anywhere in the state that hasn't been touched now.

 

[Marcovis]

Bruce: I'm sorry to hear of this. This weather here in Iowa is relentless. It seems that there isn't anywhere in the state that hasn't been touched now.

Tell me about it, I live in Des Moines. The hillside area of center trails is open, but everything else is a mess.

 

[mtbidwell]

Dang BB- not good Hope you're able to recover efficiently and still get some riding in :thumbsup:
If there is one good thing about this, it would be that constantly being reminded of all of the loss and damage, every-other bothersome problem seems quite trivial.

 

[cactuscorn]

nailed it! thats how i felt once i got to waterloo and later, cedar rapids. i pretty much stopped pizzin and moanin about the long days away from home... seein as how i still had one and all. my "difficult situation" meant nuthin anymore.

 

[BruceBrown]

Thanks to all for the thoughts. We are drying out slowly. I think there are about a dozen jet engine fans in the basement going full tilt and a couple of dehumidifiers doing their magic. They've been on since Tuesday morning when the restoration company arrived on the scene. They've been back twice to measure humidity and move things around, spray for mold and check the carpet.

The insurance adjuster comes on Monday - so we'll see what he says. We paid our $1K deductible and the rest will be covered up to a certain amount. Hopefully enough to cover carpet, drywall, painting, labor, molding, furniture and personal belongings that were ruined. 1/2 the stuff we've hauled upstairs to the garage to try and dry out, but most of the big stuff is still in the basement and the rest was part of 4 trips to the landfill to get rid of the useless stuff we would have thrown out anyway at some point during a basement cleaning.

As near as I can piece together from the city, the plumber and the restoration company - the amount of rainfall was too overwhelming for the infrastructure. The storm sewer filled with mud out in front of our house and the line from the storm sewer under our street collapsed 3 lots over from our house. The sump pumps had no chance for a few houses on my street to compete with all of that. The mud has been removed from the storm sewers and they will repair the collapsed line early next week.

As far as our basement and current state of living in our house - no time line has been given yet as to when the next phases will take place and how long it will take for everything to get back to normal. But, compared to what others have experienced in Iowa - ours is trivial. Our house will be repaired and things should be close to how it was before within a few weeks.

I just hope once the collapsed line is repaired that the infrastructure can handle that amount of rain again. I'd be happy if this kind of rain didn't happen again for another 25 years in Iowa, that's for sure.

BB

 

[cactuscorn]

diggin the positive attitude bb. keep hangin in there.

 

[IAmtnbikr]

Contact FEMA as they may be able to help out as well. My inlaws live in Sumner and had water in their basement from the torrential rains and not any river flooding. FEMA reimbursed them for part of thier losses. Hope all goes well for you and the many others affected by the disasters.

 

[Guitar Ted]

Thanks for the update Bruce. Keep on keepin' on.

I agree with your weather sentiments. This past year and going back to what? November '07?

Yeah......I'd be glad not to see any of that repeated again in my lifetime!

One note that I wanted to interject here. We've been seeing a lot of help locally and from out of state here and I know in Cedar Rapids as well. I just helped serve a meal to some flood clean up volunteers from Boise, Idaho and they tell me that they were here for a week helping out. The really cool thing? They said that there are seven more teams coming after them!

Not that anybody coming to help will see this, but a big thanks to all of you! :thumbsup:

 

[bnelson]

how does one get on a team?

 

[Guitar Ted]

how does one get on a team?

Depends on where you are from. The Red Cross is organizing some relief, and lots of local church groups get involved as well. Contacting groups through local media outlets is another way to get hooked up as well.

Ask around, you'll get plugged in if you really want to.