Flooding in the Midwest

[KSig RC]

Originally Posted by TexasWSP

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.

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:

Originally Posted by TexasWSP

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

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.

[TexasWSP]

Originally Posted by KSig RC

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.

......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.

[UGAalum94]

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.

[KSig RC]

Originally Posted by UGAalum94

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.

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.

[PeppyGPhiB]

Originally Posted by KSig RC

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/

[UGAalum94]

Originally Posted by KSig RC

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.

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

[KSig RC]

Originally Posted by UGAalum94

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

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.

[UGAalum94]

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

[bluefish81]

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.

[ISUKappa]

Originally Posted by KSig RC

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.

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.

[ISUKappa]

Originally Posted by TexasWSP

......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.

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.