The Iowa City flood of 08, part 1

Over the last few days we've had a continually growing flood problem in Iowa (and much of the Midwest) and it's getting very, very serious. We're particularly affected by the Iowa River, whose watershed runs WNW from Coralville out into central Iowa. This is my first note on the flood, but I'm sure it won't be my last, as you'll see. We are very fortunate, though -- we're high above our own little creek, and that creek has only a very small watershed so it doesn't even flood up to the path at the bottom of the yard.

The flooding comes from getting a lot of rain on top of soil that is still saturated from the long, snowy winter and from earlier rain. The rain has come from some pretty intense storms; you can see some storm clouds (from our front porch) at the leading edge of a storm late last week.Floodwaters have been rising slowly, giving people time to move out of their homes, but the waters have been rising relentlessly. This is a composite photo so you may need to click on it to get a good view of the flooding. It is taken along Dubuque street, one of three main routes into Iowa City from the north.
In Coralville, upstream of Iowa City and downstream of Coralville Reservoir, the river is out of its banks, and you can see how the river comes over its bank and down through a wooded area. When these pictures were taken, the river was still under control at the Coralville Lake dam, though the outflows from the reservoir were about three times normal. But the lake was still rising, and last night the river came over the spillway. At this point the river is forecast to rise about five feet more in Iowa City, so you can imagine what it might look like at the peak in a few days. I'll try to document this more when we get there.