flood of 1993 (Cedar Rapids, Ames, Fairfield: theater, maintenance, buses)

[mthawki]

Go to www.fema.gov and look up flood maps if you're really curious. But in '93 if you lived near a river or stream of any kind in the upper midwest, you were pretty much hosed.

[Dooo]

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I don't think the flooding was restricted to water area's. Conesville is apx. 35 miles SE of Iowa City and several miles from any river. It does lay between the Iowa and Cedar River. Columbus City was flooded as well and it's on high ground. The water seemed to come from the underground water table. Low area's of the towns and basements were flooded. It was very unusual. Dooo

[sw1978]

There were Floods...Every town in the path of the floods was affected differently. I sandbagged for two weeks at the age of 15. I seen the grandstands under water at the fairgrounds. I saw a water rescue when a boat bottomed over with people in it. Fairfield, not on the Des Moines river was affected it affected the whole state, maybe not by flooding itself but the impact it had on all community's was still there. I lived in Eldon, IA about 20 minutes from Fairfield. Population of 2500. Small town but the impact was great. Fairfield is a nice place don't see it flooding in the near future, friendly people with hospitality. Oh wait, it's not just Fairfield thats just Iowa as a whole.

[Chicago60614]

Originally Posted by vergla

the only area got hit hard in 1993 was in des moines and that other time was over 80 years that got hit real bad if your going to be near lakes yes there is a chance it will flood but not like what happen over 13 years ago .

Just had to point out how horribly wrong and almost offensive this is. MANY MANY areas, if not most, got hit hard by the flooding. I can name dozens of places that were crippled for months, along with Des Moines.

Most everything has long recovered, but what a summer that was.....

[ic-epi]

Yes, the first response is dead wrong. I lived in North Liberty IA during the '93floods and my husband worked in Cedar Rapids. He had to take an alternative route to work the entire summer that year because the major highway/interstate to CR was flooded the ENTIRE summer. It was a huge deal. I don't remember that Fairfield was affected specifically but it could have been.

[WoodwardGirl]

It was really something. I remember one rain shortly before things got really crazy in Cedar Rapids. I went home from downtown that evening... I knew it had rained but not how heavily and how fast. On the downtown streets, the mulch had been washed out of the sunken beds around trees set into the sidewalks, and was piled at corners and along the path of what had obviously been a torrential "stream," not from a waterway flooding but just from a fast rain. On 2nd Avenue, in the area of 14th Street, it appeared that someone had had a crazy party... cars were "parked" all over the street, at every angle. I couldn't figure out what I was seeing until I realized that the sudden, heavy rain had FLOATED the cars out from their curbside parking spots, then just as suddenly drained away and left them out there. It was wild.

A few days after that, we started to see affects from water getting into the steam tunnels under the city and causing electrical shorts. It was SO hot and humid and much of downtown was without power for a day or more as a result of the shorts. The river was very high, but not over its banks or the bridges or anything... but the water table had been raised so high that it just started to seep into the tunnels.

A friend went into a seminar at the Embassy Suites in Des Moines, parking his car in their lot. When he came out two hours later, the car was gone, the lot empty... it had all been flooded away and his car was fished out of the river several blocks downstream.

[mthawki]

Vergla obviously wasn't in Iowa in '93. Otherwise he/she wouldn't have made a statement so completely inaccurate.

[summer grace]

Yeah, it rained all that summer. I was only a kid, but I remember it never stopped raining, and I couldn't go outside and play like I wanted to!! I saw a book about it that called it '' Iowa's lost summer''- that seems accurate to me. I can't remember what the title was, but it was in a library a few years ago.

[Mathguy]

Wasn't there a major flood in the late 60's early 70's?
I remember my dad saying that the bridge on highway 30 into Clinto was closed and it flooded all the way to the old bluffs on the Illinois side (3 miles or so?) People that lived in Clinton took boats\ducks to get to work at the GE plant in Morrison IL.

After that flood, I believe they built dikes along the river at Clinton, Fulton etc. and when the 1993 flood came along it pushed the water further along down the Mississippi exacerbating problems further south.

This is just going by memory so don't crucify me but I think it's generally correct.

[Bloviator]

Yes, there are floods every so-many years. Davenport has been hit hard by several floods over the past 2-3 decades. And they always take crap bc the city refuses to build levies downtown, saying it destroys the natural beauty and the attraction of visitors. They are right, but I can also see why the feds get ticked about having to hand over money every 20 years or so to help the flood victims get back on their feet.