I noticed today that Google has added a Hurricane Gustav – maps & resources link to their homepage.  I think that’s actually quite nice of them and all.  I remember for Hurricane Katrina they did the comparison map to help see the devastation.  I thought that was really cool.

I’m not sure Google is aware that there was a major catastrophe here in Eastern Iowa this summer though.  It would be really cool/scary to see a comparison map of Cedar Rapids and the many towns that were wiped out.  I guess I can kind of understand it because Iowa is a less populated area.

I think I’ll go tell Google about my idea.  Searching for contact info with Google….hmm.  Google has limited it so you can only contact them regarding specific issues.   Now there are two sides to that. From the end user standpoint I am very frustrated!!  I can’t contact them to tell them about my good idea.  They kind of stink at customer service.  From their perspective – they can solve every issue anyone ever sends them.  How…simple?

PS. We don’t need another stinking browser, tyvm.

After my post yesterday, there were a few questions.  I believe by now, that they have had some of those answered by the news outlets, but I thought I would answer some others as well.

First and foremost, our house is just fine.  North Liberty is very high up compared to the flood areas.  We are conserving on water going out of the house.  So we’re using as many disposable plates, utensils, etc as possible, not shower, ya know all the usual unhealthy and environmentally horrible things (all while I wear my Thank You For Recycling shirt).  Otherwise, we are doing great (and soon to be stinky)!

At my office today, they were working on packing stuff up, when authorities came in and said to grab what they could carry and leave.  They chained the doors behind them.  The levee at IATL had breeched and so they had to cut power to North Hall.  Yesterday, we saw a cart load of servers leaving IATL.  It is amazing the number of computers that are having to be moved, right out in the open.  These units cost thousands of dollars and are normally well protected when being moved – especially on rainy days.

Unfortunately, I can’t tell you any more about what buildings are flooded so far.  There were still people sandbagging on the south side of the main library earlier tonight. There is concern that if the steam tunnels and power goes that the data center could be compromised.  I’m sure there are many people working around the clock tonight to make sure that doesn’t happen.  Lindquist Center appears to be well fortified, but we’ll see if that does any good.  I’m not sure if it has a subbasement, but I’m sure if it does that it is flooded.  The main basement shouldn’t be flooded yet – based on levels at NH yesterday.

There are so many questions that won’t be answered for a long time.  For now, we have to wait, watch, volunteer when we can and pray for those that are about to loose everything.

It’s a strange feeling being evacuated. We spent the day at work today moving out of our office due to rising flood waters. When I left the office yesterday, there were 3 foot concrete barricades around the building and volunteers sandbagging. When I came in this morning…it was gone. Not because water was over it…oh no. They have given up on our building and moved the barricades to (what I can presume are) more important buildings. It had something to do with number of people located in it. That doesn’t make me mad, I know they have to prioritize when we reach flood levels that no one ever dreamed of. It makes me sad though. I felt as I left North Hall, that I would never walk in again. There is currently 4 feet of water in the subbasement of the building. The water is predicted to go up 6 feet, or 11 feet now. 15 feet of water in my building. I just can’t fathom that. Then if a bridge goes out and pushes water higher, or worse runs into the building. There are so many ways that I can see this end devastatingly. We can hope that it doesn’t, but I never thought we could even say this was possible. This makes my last post seem somewhat unnecessary now as well. An engineer isn’t going to tell me I’m wrong.

Most people (that read this at least) are aware that most of Iowa is flooding. The Iowa City area is just one of many experiencing this. Mark has gotten me hooked on watching the reservoir website as this progresses. I’m not an engineer, but this graph scares me.

To me, this graph indicates that flooding this year will be worse than 1993. The corps was unable to drop the reservoir as low in February/March in order to prepare for this spring and summer. Then the weather pattern leads us right into the same type of year as 1993 with one difference. Every time it shoots up, it goes higher than 1993. Hopefully, an engineer would tell me this is wrong – that the comparison doesn’t mean anything, but until that happens…this graph scares me!