I'm just fine, by the way
If you hear on the news about Des Moines being evacuated, they're talking about a couple of developments by the lake and parts of downtown by the river. (Downtown, as you would know if you'd ever been here, is not that big, compared to say, oh, downtown LA.) Where I am on Merle Hay is just fine, and for me to be getting evacuated they'd be interrupting The Simpsons to tell you about it.
I suppose I could still lose electricity or drinking water, but after the floods of 1993 (which I'd never heard of until this week), the city made a lot of improvements and officials are currently confident we shouldn't lose power or anything. In fact, the officials in general have been really handling all of this well, and I've been very impressed with the response.
I did wander down to a couple of the flooded areas to take pictures, but they're not very striking because I can't post anything for comparison, so it just looks like pictures of rivers and a lake instead of pictures of a really, really swollen river and a lake that's 55 feet higher than usual. Still, might put a couple up later.
Judy was commenting that flooding is a much more casual disaster than an earthquake or a fire or something, and it's totally true. Everyone's pretty much doing what they can to be prepared and then sitting back, keeping an eye on the water, and enjoying the really nice weather while trading stories about how difficult commuting is this week if you're trying to get from one side of the river to the other.
Fortunately, I haven't had to cross it and I've got a handy backroads route to use instead of the freeway (which is crawling, partly because it's closed from mid-Des Moines to the border), so even that hasn't been too much of a problem for me. I should really go help with sandbagging this weekend or something before karma gets me out of spite. (Though I did have to cancel my date with Joanne to go hit the science center tomorrow, since it's closed, but we're optimistic it might reopen Sunday.)
I suppose I could still lose electricity or drinking water, but after the floods of 1993 (which I'd never heard of until this week), the city made a lot of improvements and officials are currently confident we shouldn't lose power or anything. In fact, the officials in general have been really handling all of this well, and I've been very impressed with the response.
I did wander down to a couple of the flooded areas to take pictures, but they're not very striking because I can't post anything for comparison, so it just looks like pictures of rivers and a lake instead of pictures of a really, really swollen river and a lake that's 55 feet higher than usual. Still, might put a couple up later.
Judy was commenting that flooding is a much more casual disaster than an earthquake or a fire or something, and it's totally true. Everyone's pretty much doing what they can to be prepared and then sitting back, keeping an eye on the water, and enjoying the really nice weather while trading stories about how difficult commuting is this week if you're trying to get from one side of the river to the other.
Fortunately, I haven't had to cross it and I've got a handy backroads route to use instead of the freeway (which is crawling, partly because it's closed from mid-Des Moines to the border), so even that hasn't been too much of a problem for me. I should really go help with sandbagging this weekend or something before karma gets me out of spite. (Though I did have to cancel my date with Joanne to go hit the science center tomorrow, since it's closed, but we're optimistic it might reopen Sunday.)