Flooding in the Midwest
 

Now, I watch the news just as much as the next guy...FoxNews, CNN, MSNBC...I watch it all. I'm not sure if anyone will agree, but I thought I'd make a thread about it. Does anyone else think the coverage of the disaster that is Iowa and the Midwest is rather minuscule considering how bad it truly is? I've heard three different times from new outlets over the past two days that right now, at this point, it's three times worse than Katrina....yet it seems like it is far less publicized. Maybe it's because people up there aren't shooting at cops and helicopters...I dunno, haha.

When Katrina happened you would have thought the world was ending....chaos, mass hysteria.

I mean hell, I haven't even heard anyone blame the natural disaster on Bush yet.....something's gotta give.

I get most of my news from news websites, and there's been a good amount of coverage as far as I can tell. I have noticed, though, that TV isn't giving the flood that much coverage (at least not in the DFW area). Since coverage began, I thought the flood received less airtime because of the population density of the area (appx 1 million people in New Orleans vs. a seemingly similar amount spread over a larger area).

It's interesting, I've been thinking the same thing, that the coverage has been muted. The same thing happened a couple of years ago when there was massive flooding in upstate NY; a number of small towns were basically destroyed by the flooding, and yet there wasn't a whole lot of coverage about it. It seems like the same thing is happening here.

I really feel for the people in the Midwest, they're getting hit hard out there.

I think the nature of the coverage is really different, and I don't know if it's the relative length of time it can take for a flood to happen and for waters to recede vs. a hurricane taking place in a much shorter span.

There doesn't seem to be the same sense of people in the Midwest being victims of bad government, but that can creep in overtime I suppose.

I'm not sure why there's not as much public outcry to provide assistance.

ETA: I don't really mean this post to seem so pessimistic. I think it's great that the flood disasters have been managed as well as they have, but it seems an opportunity to analyze the contrast in well-managed situations vs. chaos and we're not getting that kind of coverage.

Wheres Kanye? Oh yeah, getting booed off the stage at Bonnaroo.

I think quite a bit of this depends on how you view "worse" - it's "worse" in the sense that property damage will amount to billions, entire towns are demolished, and there is water over a comparably immeasurable amount of territory.

However, I believe the death toll measures something like five, total - and I feel like that is the real deciding factor for news agencies.

I live in downtown Des Moines, right off the river - not many problems in that part of town, but levees broke upstream and downstream. Pretty minor compared to what could have happened - then again, the National Guard and local volunteers put up something like 2.5 million sandbags. The real problems happened in Cedar Rapids, Iowa City and smaller areas between the Iowa/Cedar basins and the Mississippi. Property damage in small towns isn't nearly as "sexy" as dozens of deaths.

If you can, though, dig out coverage locally - it is truly insane. Cedar Rapids last week, Iowa City now, and basically Burlington to St. Louis from today to next weekend should get crazy. Here's my favorite shot:

http://www.nydailynews.com/img/2008/...iowa_flood.jpg

Another major (MAJOR) difference: local officials, working closely with the Army Corps of Engineers, have generally had solid plans and a good idea of what was going to happen. Evacuations, sandbagging efforts and reinforcement of levees (including creation of entirely new dikes on the fly) has been borderline seamless all over the state, even in places where it ultimately didn't matter (see: Iowa City).

Of course, this makes sense, because the intense amount of rain over the last 3 months gave plenty of warning, and projections change much more slowly. Additionally, flooding 15 years ago forced a complete evaluation of all levees and rivers, leading to much better build-up (and crazy good ability to predict where breaks would occur).

All this leads to a much more calm scenario, even when 30,000 people are evacuated and an entire city of nearly 200,000 sits under 8 feet of water. It sucks, but it's been handled incredibly efficiently - again, making the story much less sexy.

Honestly, my major take-away from all this has been that I really think much more Katrina blame has to go on local officials than I would have imagined in the past - local government has been, for the most part, outstanding here in the Midwest, and I've changed my mind quite a bit with the way I view actions pre- and post-Katrina in that light.

This was the last paragraph in an article in the Atlanta paper:

"The American Red Cross said Monday its disaster relief fund has been completely spent, and the agency is borrowing money to help flood victims throughout the Midwest."

Seems like it would be worth pointing out closer to the lede.


Phi Gam: Maybe Kanye remains confident that Bush will continue to care about the predominately white people in the midwest, should it come to that level of federal response.

ETA: It just seems like we can learn from the successes even if they aren't as sexy, KSig RC. Evacuate early, etc.

Here's my take on why we're not seeing the desperate coverage and calls for assistance to the Mid West the way we did with New Orleans. Those of us over here on the west coast are used to seeing stories about the mid west getting flooded, and tornados. Of course this is far worse than what is typical, but many folks probably don't realize it. These photos of flooded out landscapes look the same to them as the flooded out landscapes we seem to see every year from that part of the country. They won't start to notice it until they go to the store this summer and wonder why the corn for their bbq is so expensive.

That makes sense to me in terms of the amount of attention the average person is actually paying to the story, but it doesn't explain why the press isn't doing a better job with actually covering the reality (500 year flood), unless we've all just kind of accepted that they feed us the news that they think we want to watch.

ETA: if you just pull up the basic front page of the Atlanta paper: ajc.com, I don't even think a flood story appears, but they've got room for a link on horse vasectomies, wth?

Obviously, as I live here, that's all I see on the news. I have had people from around the country (and even a friend in Finland) contact me to see if we were okay, so it must be on somewhere. The worst of the flooding in our area is over although there are still areas downstream and on the Mississippi that are currently of concern.

I agree part of it has to do with the location/population density. I mean, almost everyone has heard of New Orleans but maybe 1/4 of the country (probably less) has heard of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, or even care about Iowa in general. Multiple cities have been impacted with possibility of more as the flooding continues downstream. It's difficult to pinpoint one area whereas with Katrina, it was easy to focus on New Orleans.

Also, while 25,000 or so people were evacuated in Cedar Rapids, less than 20 people have died as a result of the flooding. And amazingly, looting is minimal. I was looking at the local paper today and they reported only one case so far.

What I don't think people realize is the economic impact these floods will have on consumers. Right now they're estimating 2-4% of the entire corn crop for the country is lost. Already corn prices are at record highs, but yields will be extremely low this year due to a cold, wet spring and the floods. Other commodities and produce will be affected as well. It is not going to be a good year for farmers.

ETA: Rob posted while I was in the middle of this post, and I agree with him also in the fact that we did have some time to prepare and do the best we could WRT sandbagging and creating barricades, even though much was for naught. While there have been disgruntled people, for the most part they are accepting of what the mayor, city council and governor have put into action. Hell, I can only shower every other day and can't flush our toilets until our water system is at 100% capacity and we were 15 blocks away from the worst of the flooding. It's not ideal, but I'll gladly take it if that means it will help recovery efforts. While this blows away the floods of '93, those also taught our cities lessons on preparedness and dealing with this type of catastrophe.

ETA2:
local news media websites:
www.gazetteonline.com - Cedar Rapids paper
www.dmregister.com - Des Moines paper

The image galleries from the Gazette are seriously insane.

Worth reporting nationwide, wouldn't you say?

I can't even describe to you how minimal yearly flooding is in comparison with what is happening. However, pictures could, so yeah - news.

http://cmsimg.press-citizen.com/apps...w=600&Maxh=500

http://cmsimg.desmoinesregister.com/...w=450&Maxh=400

http://cmsimg.press-citizen.com/apps...w=600&Maxh=500

http://cmsimg.press-citizen.com/apps...w=600&Maxh=500

http://cmsimg.press-citizen.com/apps...w=600&Maxh=500

Seriously, it's pretty much just because people didn't die - the extent of the damage is extraordinary.

Wow, seeing the TOP of the carousel peeking out (that is what it is, right?) is breathtaking. My thoughts and prayers are with everyone affected. And I'll miss the corn at our 4th of July BBQ... :(

Yes, but there's a difference between a 30-second story on a newscast and a full news special on the situation, YK? The flooding in the Midwest has gotten mention in most news coverage, but not more than that. It was on the Yahoo frontpage for most of the weekend as well as on CNN and MSNBC Thurs-Sat, but as the floodwaters have [mostly] receded in Cedar Rapids (the largest affected city) and are starting to in other parts of the state, the focus has switched from MAJOR FLOODING to flood recovery. That's not nearly as exciting.

The worst of the flooding happened last week, at least in Cedar Rapids. No one thought it would be as bad as it was. It was a complete freak of nature compounded by the fact that up until last weekend, it's rained every day in June, and not just nice spring rains, we're talking about massive thunderstorms. The Cedar and Iowa Rivers were already swollen upstream and the amount of rain we got last week, and the fact it came so fast, compounded that issue. It has been an extremely wet spring overall, so the ground was already completely saturated and there was no where else for the water to go.

ETA: after a quick search on some websites, cnn.com; msnbc.com, foxnews.com, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe all have some mention on their front page. The LA Times, NY Times and the AJC have stories, but under their US/Nation tabs. I'm sure it's that way with many other newspapers.

It was kind of funny that when we turned on PBS the question being asked to a Missouri professor right then was "is this situation comparable to Katrina?"

And I think that's what seems strange about the coverage.

It's almost like the media don't have the same enthusiasm for showing the public instances of successful local and state governments working in concert with people taking personal responsibility to keep a disastrous situation from taking a huge toll in human life as they do in blaming people after other disasters and seeing people as victims. Why would that be?

......or victims of their own stupidity.

......Definitely following everything you have said.

Also, it sounds like when people were told to evacuate....they actually did in this situation. Common sense is a great thing to have.

I just read a story on ajc.com that had been edited to insert that the floods would have been much worse had FEMA not purchased land after the 1993 floods.

Most of them did in Cedar Rapids. And if they didn't and the Police/FD/Nat'l Guard came around on the boats and saw them, they were forcibly removed. They did have to go do some rescues Friday and Saturday, mostly of people who either didn't think the flooding would get that bad or didn't want to leave family/pets. But those were minimal - I'd say under 100 people total of the 25,000+ who were asked to evacuate.

I've never heard anything resembling this - link?

FEMA funds have been so awkward after the '93 floods that the biggest levee breach in Des Moines has been on a FEMA list since then as a "high-priority" failure point according to the ACE, but without any sort of Congressional action to enact the funding.

It's a front page story on MSNBC.com: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25200788/

Weirdly, I can't find the story today. I'll try to remember to link in the future.

The Peppy link is pretty close in content, but the story from yesterday in the AJC.com just threw new quotes into an older story.

There's a whole lot more FEMA stuff in all the coverage today, maybe in response to Byrd's comments yesterday: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080617/...sa_flooding_dc

I'd never heard that either. I read the article UGA is talking about, and it sounds like the majority of the land FEMA bought up was in eastern IL, NE MO, and SE IA.

There was little coverage about this, I knew people who's houses floated away and people who disappeared... it wasn't quite on the same scale as this awful Midwest situation/disaster, but all the same, I haven't noticed as much media coverage either.

All good - thanks for the link (you too, Peppy).

That's interesting, and seems pretty smart - there's nothing like that in my area, so I hadn't even heard about it, but clearing out low-lying areas for park land is a pretty standard city planning move, there's really no reason not to do it in flood plain areas, I'd guess.

I've got to work on how I'm linking stuff.

I was just linking that last one to show the criticism yesterday. I think Peppy's article was the best one about FEMA.

I agree that buying the land most likely to flood and using in for parks is a great idea and when you are rebuilding after a devastating natural disaster is a great time to consider where it makes sense to rebuild. (This does kind of lead to ugly redevelopment on the coasts after hurricanes sometimes, but there's got to be some kind of reality check on what's logically insurable.)

But when you talk about stuff in the 100 year or 500 year flood plain, should the govt. buy that too? How much farm land would that involve that would make sense NOT to plant most years? I know nobody suggested that, but I just don't think we'll ever get to the level when we can completely anticipate and negate the relatively awesome power of natural forces.

I'm sure there could be levee improvements and top notch city planning, but considering the relatively low loss of human life, I'm not throwing in that this one was a governmental failure just yet, which was the tone that Byrd was developing and that I expect to see dominate some coverage.

Has anyone seen any coverage that ties in ethanol production further affecting crop supply? ETA: apparently I was looking at this backwards. I was assuming that maybe there'd be less stored corn grain or whatever because ethanol production was up, but apparently the issue is corn prices are just making ethanol production less profitable. http://www.wsj.com/article/SB1213360..._us_whats_news

I vaguely remember some smaller communities in Iowa (under 500) that discussed whether or not they should move their towns periodically in the past 15 years. Chelsea is the one that sticks out in my mind the most. After thinking about it, I came up with one, Elkport, it's this tiny and I mean tiny town in Clayton county that flooded back in 90s and apparently flooded again a few years ago. FEMA did buy it out a few years back. I didn't even realize it was incorporated, but my aunt and uncle used to live just outside of it back in the 80s. I think the links in the bottom of the wiki article mention a few other communities that FEMA bought out.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elkport%2C_IA

The flooding seems to be getting a fair amount of coverage, at least here in the border states - I've been asked by a lot of people that I cross paths with on a daily basis about it. Yesterday when I had a lot of windshield time, NPR did two or three different stories on it in the morning - general one about Cedar Rapids, one about Burlington and another about Gladstone, IL.

Coverage is up today versus yesterday and the day before all over as near as I can tell, even in Atlanta.

ETA: I suppose all intervention in terms of government buyouts is easier when you are talking about towns smaller than 100 people. It's still a cultural and personal loss that I'm not trying to diminish, but pragmatically, it's got to be easier to do. One of the stories I read yesterday (I think about a relatively high population area), covered a women in her eighties who had moved back to her family home two or three times in the past but said she wasn't going to do it again. It wasn't really clear if they had lost their house and rebuilt or just had to evacuate and live with the uncertainty, fear, and other loss of farm land in the previous instances.

It wouldn't make sense, at least in most of the cities, for FEMA to buy out the 100- or 500-year plain. That would completely wipe out our downtown and a good chunk of private property. It would also take out half the University of Iowa campus. In those areas, it's better to build up levees and refine emergency plans in the event another flood like this does occur.

As far as farmland goes, it's a hard call. Farmers know there's always risk in their occupation. They at least get some assistance through insurance and the ever-hated subsidies when faced with massive crop loss such as this. With the current demand and price for commodity crops, though, they would be insane to let their land lay fallow. There are some environmental practices they can use to help with drainage, but those are minimal in a catastrophic flood event.

The titles 100-year and 500-year floodplain are somewhat misleading, too (IMO). 100-year floodplain is the area that has a 1% potential to flood in any given year. 500-year floodplain is the area that has a .2% chance to flood in any given year. Generally speaking, when given odds such as those, you're not going to let your land sit.

As in 1993, the heavily flooded areas received an extreme amount of precipitation from April-June (really, since January) due to a stagnant Jet stream stuck right over Iowa/Wisconsin and a constant rotation of very moist high/low pressure systems. That created the massive thunderstorms we've had in May and June. The ground was already saturated from a wet spring and streams and rivers were extremely swollen due to snow melts. The combination of all those factors led to the severe flooding.

I think that's the very reason why no one has suggested doing anything at all with 100- or 500-year floodplains (and really, the reason why we label them as such) - it's unpredictable and sometimes will go completely apeshit. No one is saying to clear out the 500-year floodplain, just the areas that are consistently in danger and would be cost-effective to purchase.

At least from what I've seen and read, anyone who takes that tone is likely being disingenuous based on a preconceived agenda. The WV Representative that blamed this on Bush did so with absolutely no understanding of the situation.

I haven't heard a single person involved claim that governmental agencies did anything wrong, which is the most telling part. Unless further information comes to light, you have to simply think this was a once-in-500-years occurrence, and you can't plan for that sort of thing.

That's completely how I see it, but I'm still expecting spin to emerge that will allow people to advocate for whatever it is that they want to advocate for anyway.

As long as it remains a bad-stuff-even-happens-with-good-government story or a look-at-what-can-be-accomplished-with-relatively-minimal-federal-government-action story, there's not going to be a good agenda and story match-up for many media outlets or so says my little black media hating heart.

On a slightly different note, what's going to happen with the flooding hits the Mississippi outside of New Orleans. Is the river delta down there just so big we can assume it's going to be okay?

As some of the other posters have pointed out, buying all that land wouldn't be feasible. A 100 year flood plain basically means that there's a 1% chance every year that the area is going to flood (according to FEMA). 500 year flood plain means that there's a .2 percent chance of flood every year.

I think that's a good question as far as what will happen when the flooding hits down there. I have no idea. Hopefully they're potentially prepping for it if necessary.

I wanted to make clear that I wasn't really advocating for a massive buyout. My point was more about the limits of what governments can do to protect us from nature. Sorry for not bring clear.

There's a pretty good article in today's paper about the potential for buyouts.

Link

So it's a possibility in some areas.

Also, I guess a new courthouse had been on the list for funding for a few years but it wasn't expected to come through until 2010 or later. Our senators are trying to see if that can be pushed through earlier.

Ok...so one of my co workers was ranting about the news is 'unfairly' covering this because you don't hear any reports of looting or robbing...

I sat her down and kindly showed her some of the pics you guys...


With all that water....there is nothing worth stealing....unless you got scuba gear...give it a rest

ETA: Midwest residents unsettled by FEMA

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080619/...s_no_insurance

In Cedar Rapids, there just wasn't any noteworthy flooding.

In Des Moines, police were stationed at high ground overlooking potential flood areas downtown on alert for looting, but nowhere worth looting flooded.

IC is still a mess, but really no major reports yet.

It just didn't happen, for whatever reason - it's a different situation, because it's not "traumatic" where it came through then left a ghost town.

Where is FEMA in all this?

With George Bush creating more hurricanes in his secret lab.

I have seen several intervews and reports with FEMA.

:eek:;):D:):cool:

LOL I'm picturing a baking soda/vinegar volcano too!