How to (almost) live through a flood
June 20, 2008 By: almostgotit Category: Uncategorized, Iowa summer festival of writing, Iowa flood
This is IMU building on the University of Iowa Campus, as of two days ago. My hotel was housed in the upper right-hand corner of the building. The sandbag levee that I (almost) helped build is the white, wavy line bisecting this picture. I was (almost) there when the real, actual flooding took place.
This is what the ground floor, or basement level, of the IMU looks like now, after being flooded with five feet of water. I (almost) bought souvenirs at this bookstore for everyone in my family. I had to hand over my airplane peanuts, instead.
I also (almost) stayed long enough to see the massive turn-out of volunteers that put in another round of sandbagging on campus last weekend. Some appear to have come from the large Amish settlements in northeastern Iowa. What’s the story there, do you suppose? That’s a long ride in a buggy..
I can only (almost) imagine losing my house or my farm or my livelihood in the midwest floods that are still taking place. It’s either too big, or too foreign a set of things for me to think about. But as for the much more specific matter of the IMU building on the University of Iowa Campus in Iowa City, Iowa — now that’s about the size of a thing I can focus my attention upon, for one week at least, and understand.
Almost.
(Images from the UI News Service photo stream on Flickr.com)
June 21st, 2008 at 4:44 pm
Great photos. I feel for all those who are going through the flood.
If only we could get a little of the rain down here in Georgia. It has been over a month since we have had a shower.
So glad you stopped by for a visit at my site.
Have a good weekend.
June 21st, 2008 at 6:06 pm
Thanks for dropping by, Pam! Re the rain: I know, this part of the country is pretty much dry as a bone. It was strange coming back to it! I did try, very hard, to persuade the locals to send some of their water down here to the Southeast. Strangely, they didn’t find that nearly as funny as I did. Blame it on the margaritas, I guess.
June 22nd, 2008 at 8:20 pm
hi elizabeth, this is mel/melanie from the “emotional” essay workshop
stumbled upon your blog while googling iowa writer’s workshop trying to find out what happened after i scrambled to the airport two weeks ago. so the IMU did flood after all 
and the disconcerting thing is, all the pics look so sunshiney happy. hope you’ve settled back home!
June 22nd, 2008 at 9:45 pm
As in, Melanie from Singapore? What a nice surprise! I wondered how everyone managed, once we all started scrambling to get out. So nice to have you drop by, and please do so again. Send me something you’ve WRITTEN, I’d love to read it! almostgotit@gmail.com xxoo
October 10th, 2008 at 12:05 pm
[…] Iowa bonded deeply with each other last summer. There’s something about writing, laughing, and nearly drowning together that will do that to people, I […]