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Father’s Day 2008 wasn’t quite what any of us had been planning, but it’s still gone pretty well. After finishing a tasty breakfast that Becky made for me, we spent most of the morning and afternoon cleaning up the basement - washing things down with a bleach solution, sweeping up dirt and grime, repacking boxes that had gotten wet, scraping peeling paint off the walls, and starting to repaint. Slowly it’s coming back together.

Tonight we went out to Chili’s for supper, and while the food was quite tasty, it was weird to have it served on paper plates and in plastic cups with plastic utensils. With all of Cedar Rapids still on a water conservation plan, though, everyone in the city is doing something similar. Thankfully they were able to get a second water pumping station back online today, so the risk of totally losing water has lessened considerably, and the restrictions on water use have eased a bit. People are quite happy they can take showers once again.

By tomorrow night or Tuesday at the latest we should have stuff mostly put back together and have it feel more like “normal” at home; it’ll probably be the end of the week before the river has receded and we can see how many roads will need repaired before they can be used again. It will be nice to have the bridges back open, though; if they are all closed for too much longer it will become quite difficult to bring in trucks of supplies to restock the stores. But I think it’s going to turn out OK.

It will be a long rebuilding process for Cedar Rapids. It won’t be weeks or months; it’ll be years. There are thousands of houses to repair or demolish and rebuild; hundreds of businesses that have been severely damaged, bridges and roads that have been totally washed away; the heart of the city decimated by a deluge the scale of which we have never before seen. But the sunshine gives us hope - an internal assurance that the sorrow now measured by muddy waterlines on painted siding will be eventually superseded by the joy of new buildings, fresh paint, and restored community. Through it all, we hope and trust that God is good. And tomorrow morning we will find new mercies.

What a beautiful day today was. Sunshine, cool temps… such a nice change from the weeks of rain. We’re even forecast to get several more sunny days here over the next week. Let’s pray that it happens.

Well, we’ve had shop vacs of one sort or another running continuously in the basement now for about 30 hours. I finally went and bought one of my own so I wouldn’t keep being scared of burning out the motor on a borrowed vac. :-) The water has slowed down to the point where I don’t think much maintenance will be needed… which is a very good feeling. We’ve still got a lot of cleanup to do, but we’ll leave all the fans and the dehumidifier running all night and I imagine we’ll be in pretty good shape tomorrow.

Thanks to all of you who have prayed, called, emailed, and otherwise checked in. We were blessed here in Hiawatha to be on high ground. There are thousands down in Cedar Rapids who will be demolishing and rebuilding houses and businesses over the next months and years. It’s going to be a long, difficult recovery.

I mentioned it to Dad this morning on the phone: as soon as the water showed up in my basement, I started praying for good weather with an incredible fervor. Barely had the first prayer left my lips, though, then I felt a sense of guilt - why was I only praying now, when the water had been in other people’s basements, homes, and businesses, for days now? I am reminded that I need to hold up my neighbors in prayer with the same attention that I pray for myself and my family. A good lesson to learn, even in the midst of the flood.

No time to post pictures but if you visit any online news site you’ll undoubtedly be able to see the pictures of Cedar Rapids, IA. When the river crests tomorrow (God willing), it will be about 12 feet above, not flood stage, but 12 feet above the previously-highest measured flood. Twenty feet above flood stage.

We are on high ground here in Hiawatha, but very wet, saturated ground. The water started coming up through the cracks in the basement floor about 1 pm on Thursday, and we’ve been running two Shop Vacs non-stop since then (14 hours now). We’re keeping up with it, but only just. It hasn’t rained for almost seven hours now, so I keep thinking (hoping) that the water level will go down enough that it’ll stay out of the basement. I guess we’ll find out. For now, we’re just praying for no more rain and for these shop vacs to hold out. I doubt they were designed to run this long this hard.

We have an internet connection finally here at home (it was out for 24 hours due to the flooding), so I’ll try to post updates if I get a chance.

It’s been a weird year for weather here in Iowa. We started with the snowiest winter on record. Once that melted, we had an unusually cool spring. Now we’re finishing up spring and headed toward summer, and the rain has been nearly unstoppable. Seems like every day is another thunderstorm, bringing an inch (or two) (or three) of rain.

Now the flooding has begun. Already three of the bridges crossing the Cedar River in Cedar Rapids have been closed because the river has reached (or nearly reached) the bottom of the bridge. Mandatory evacuations have been declared for low-lying areas of town. A flood totally took out the railroad bridge up in Cedar Falls. They’ve got a fully-loaded train sitting on our railroad bridge here in Cedar Rapids to try and keep it from being swept away, too. (This picture is of a different bridge in CR.)

A lot of the low-lying areas are well known for flooding, but this one (near Ellis Park on the SW side of CR) is still stunning:

And there’s rain on the way again this morning. And tonight. And tomorrow. It’s gonna get better before it gets worse. Now, friends, fortunately our house is far away from the river, and on high ground; we’re in no danger of flooding; however, we have friends and co-workers who are currently in the process of sandbagging, packing up, and evacuating. Let’s pray that this rain stops, very soon.