Iowa Flooding Leaves 36,000 Homeless

Below is a telling excerpt from AP on the chaos caused by the Iowa flooding. Keep reading more about the floods here.

As Iowa City hoped to elude the worst damage, the state had a multi-front battle on its hands. State officials warned of problems ahead for a string of towns in southeast Iowa along the Mississippi River, led by Burlington, a key railroad hub.

"It's likely that we will see major and serious flooding on every part of the southeastern border of our state from New Boston and down," Culver said. "We are taking precautionary steps, we are evacuating where necessary, but that is going to be the next round here."

Early Monday, more than 36,000 residents in 26 communities had been evacuated from their homes, said Kevin Baskins of the state Emergency Operations Center. Most of those _ 25,000 _ were in Cedar Rapids, and another 5,000 in Iowa City, he said.

Comments

[Chuckwheat]

Dr Skull Chertoff is leading a caravan of FEMA trailers across the Great Plains, should be there by 2012.

[WLA]

Heckuva job, Skully.

[DerAmi]

Well, it isn't quite to the plains yet. Many are manufactured in Indiana and so they'll first have to travel over the Appalachian mountains before heading down the East Coast where they can then wait for the tractors to arrive from Idaho so that they can then be delivered to Iowa.

[Chuckwheat]

Right, see America first!

[mathme]

Nice :)

[andvoodoo2]

Tractors made in Russia.

[BlackJAC]

Why does this keep happening? Does somebody pop a huge MEN IN BLACK-style neuralyzer on these people after each flooding to keep them from building in some safeguards for the next round?

[Photofarm]

Actually there were levee's built, and they held during the 1993 floods, but this was worse, and the levee's broke.

[youknowwhat]

I wish the Iowans the best and I hope they'll pull out of this. But don't look for any help from this republican administration, they are destruction oriented. The neocons and the republicans are not people friendly. As far as they are concerned, this is a state problem.

[WLA]

As far as they are concerned it's "someone else's" problem. Always is.

[andvoodoo2]

Read Naomi Klein's "Shock Doctrine". The repugs LOVE disasters like this. This is how they reshape the socio-economic make-up of the area and how they and their friends get rich. Disaster capitalism, my friend.

[Hare]

You are so correct. Naomi states very clearly the advantages for the administration when disasters such as this happen. I made my kids read the book and I also recommend it. More changes coming soon

[CrapWhisperer]

.

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[ProfessorDuh]

Sure is normal weather we're having, isn't it, Republicans?

[Succatash]

Yea Sir Professor, its a bit strange to have rain and flooding in the midwest. Can' recall that ever happening before.

[joebaggadonuts]

Well, at least the floods haven't been this bad since 1929.

[only1Demvoter]

What's a ' tash ' ?


-ralph

[maxdenn]

Lets see if I get this right. It's the government's responsibility to spend billions, and send over 4,000 American soldiers to their death, in an illegal war, not to mention countless civilians to their grave in Iraq but it's not the responsibility of the U.S. government to help Iowans in their time of extreme need?

[eyesopenwide]

They think the taxpayers' money is their own to spend for whatever THEY want, and you can bet these greedy thieving bastards don't want to "waste" any of that money on the people for whom it was meant to benefit.

[mom2sons]

Praying for you Iowa. No matter what kind of disaster hits this country, the government is to ensure that the people are taken care of, if not, why do we all keep paying of frickin taxes for? No we don't need government all the time, but it is their responsbility, get a life for those of you who are too ignorant to know this. You will not drive a wedge between us because we are all Americans!

[trollsbwild]

Amen. Can't begin to express my sympathies for those affected. My hope is that FEMA does a much better job than Kansas or Katrina, but I would not bet on it.

[sytgrl]

Just a side note clarificat­ion...your income (federal taxes) mostly go to the government paying back back the federal reserve (a private, not governmental entity) for the cost of printing money (at interest, of course). All of the money that you expect your taxes to pay for--schools, infrastructure, etc.--come­s from your state taxes.

This not to say that I agree with this idiotic rule; the federal government should help at times like these. However, that is a common misconception.

[TRYKER]

Our current govt thinks that the money WE send to Washington is for THEM. They get to spend it anywhere they like.
It astonishes them that citizens would expect this money to pay for domestic needs. Their only reaction is: "damn beggers, get off your butts and wade!"

Always remember, its the entitled ones at the TOP that get the most govt money...wh­ile they blame those at the bottom for "those damn entitlemen­ts."

[CoulterIsASuccubus]

I am waiting for Pat Robertson to say this is God's wrath for supporting Obama in the primary.

[helonias]

Which god?

[mathme]

Which one do you think Pat Robertson would be talking about?

[maxdenn]

I believe that the world's weather problems are affected by humankind's disregard for protection of the environment

[donaldw6]

I'm worried about this summer. Mother Nature doesn't look happy to me.

[SouthpawSass]

Sorry, but according to John Hagee they must have done something to offend God. Or at least Hagees God, who sounds like a freaking SOB if you ask me...

[TocinoHumano]

Apparently God hates conservative white people. Maybe God's not such a bad ol' guy after all.

[biglover]

I feel sorry for these people no matter what color they are just as I (still) feel bad about the poor people in NO and Mississippi.

If we can spend 12 billion a month on a useless illegal war, then we should be able to help them. Unfortunately, our national guard is all tied up in useless wars and these people couldn't even get the help they needed.

I feel very sorry for all of these folks and I certainly worry about them and how they are going to get along. We should care more about our fellow man than corporate raiders and scum bags like the bush administration

[buggedabouttheus]

I feel their pain. Three years ago Isat in shelter looking at my city under water. What was we thought a two day stay away from home is three years and counting. The only difference is that their flooding is from rain and ours was from poorly designed and maintained levees. All I can say is that the American people, regular citizens are awesome. It will be us to give you that helping hand and needed prayers. FEMA will do a better job but do not count on it. The kindness of strangers will get you through it.

Now, I await the heartless jackasses to say that these folks deserve what they got because of where they live and should simply move. No one deserves this and most of love where we live. How else can you explain Kansas and Oklahoma?

[biglover]

I agree. I feel sorry for all these people. We should be more concerned about out fellow citizens rather than bashing them for where they live.

[leduck]

hey i got a great idea....
why not build houses in a river


FLOOD PLAIN
RIVER
SAME THING

[alaintex]

Your idea isn't all that great. And neither is your analogy.

If we could only build houses in locations of lower probablistic risk than a 500 year flood, there would be no houses in CA or anywhere along the East or Gulf Coasts.

Hmm. On second thought maybe that WOULD be a good idea.

[helonias]

But what is the accuracy of determining such flooding, by a gov/pol entity.

[SouthpawSass]

And we can't all move to the center... tornadoes suck. Guess we'll just have to invade Canada.

[mathme]

Guess where the most fertile soil is.

[theSheebz]

How about you toss my salad instead?

[IowaGirl]

What is there about 500-YEAR flood plain that you don't understand.

This is a once-in-a-millenium event, in other words.

I don't know how else to explain it to you. Unless of course, you agree that global warming is intensifying all weather events and thus we can look forward to more years (like the last one) of record-breaking snowfalls and months of drenching rain, relentlessly filling up the rivers and reservoirs.

What have you not done that you should have realized years ago would be necessary b/c of global warming?

[leduck]

last time mississippi flooded Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, North and South Dakota, Nebraska, and Wisconsin?

1993

that doesn't sound like 500 years to me

[rextrek]

Forget ALL this flooding, and peoples lives ravaged by tragedy...­"Gays in Iowa want to Git' married"..­..(insert sarcazm) should be interesting to hear about the "Insurance Companies" start to turn down these peoples CLAIMS....­.yea,Iowan­s - Keep voting GOP...and see what you get...NADD­A!

[mathme]

Look up Iowa's voting record before you start talking.

[alaintex]

I wouldn't be surprised if both of Iowas gay people agree with you.

[theSheebz]

ironic how your mocking Iowans intelligence when you can't even spell sarcasm correctly and completely ignore the fact that Iowa voted Dem in 2000. You're a pretty dumb person. Good luck with that.

[Kman2]

Keep voting GOP? Clinton won IA twice, Gore won IA.

[obamanation31]

OMG! this is another Katerina! Where's FEMA?

[UnknownSoldier]

its not that bad, but where is FEMA and the President

[WLA]

Dancing, kissing Saudis, what-have-you. Definitely not golfing, though. Out of respect fer the troops.

[Julie24]

Forget FEMA...whe­re's the gay pride parade? There must be one right? Isn't that why bad floods happen to good cities?

[evolution1223]

God bless and protect these people.

But it was Glenn Beck who I heard ranting on his show just a few weeks ago about how "WE" don't stand up on our rooftops begging for help. "WE" take care of ourselves. "WE" don't beg for handouts. "WE" pull ourselves up by our boostraps. Because "WE" don't cling to guns and religion.

I wonder if "WE" feel the same way now. Or are those poor people in the Midwest just inherently superior to those in the Gulf Coast during an emergency?

Looks to me like everyone needs help in an emergency. Not just poor, black people.

[luziannagirl]

Sounds like SOMEONE is desperate to drive a wedge between the folks in Iowa and the folks down on the Gulf Coast, lest they find one too many similarities in their situations and unite against the common enemy...

[mathme]

I didn't think that Beck would so easily identify with Democratic Iowa.

[biglover]

Amen to that evolution 1223.