Flood and if the levy breaks
Okay, so I live by a dike and not a levy and no, I do not mean dyke. We generally do not get too much more than a trickle of water. At the moment, all is mostly dry. Steve started on a project in the basement to move everything from the "wet" side of the basement to the dry side. He finished yesterday. Originally, he told me it was mainly to get two disintigrating bookcases taken care of before we losty anymore books. We had already spent at least an hour in the basement due to tornado-ey stuff. We kept my futon (YES! My stinky futon :P) and we moved it so it would be better than me sitting on the basement steps or on our newer cool chairs that we drag to outdoor concerts etc. The basement is now nicer than our bathroom (jk - it just needs a makeover as does our bedroom - trust me babyshit yellow and crimson looks like a multi-baby homicide and vomitorium - I just want dark blue and new carpet since Cricket passed.) We are about 5 - 6 blocks from Black Hawk Creek and that is not good. Why, you ask? We are having a 200 year flood. The creek seems fairly shallow in places (hello ex-bf!) but my father and Uncle Dick say it is up to 20 ft deep in some places.) For the majority of this spring, however the dike has been closed. In fact it has been closed for about 9ish days. We have been inundated with rain here - high windage, heavy downfall, even hail and that weird sideways rain that Forest Gump talks about. We thought we had seen it all. We knew we were close to the cup running over. Black Hawk Creek runs into the Cedar River, and the Cedar River runs into downtown Waterloo. Cedar Falls evacuated their downtown- where Steve and I lived prior to now. They are continuing to widen the evacuation - it keeps raining - later, Waterloo evacuated their downtown and portions of of the city surrounding the area.We live on the West side and can get to just about anything we may need. Steve's parents have 22 acres of land on the East side and are very limited. Predictions have been made, precautions taken and the dike broke a few miles away. We are not anticipating anything, but who the hell knows. The water is so powerful, it took out a railroad bridge which then slammed into other bridges on it's way down stream. I have seen the water very high, but I have never ever seen the water overtake every single bridge in downtown. My dad told me not to go sandbag. He said that he did it for a week straight in 1966, so that gets me, him and Steve out of doing it in 2008. Today, we had originally headed home and my dad decided to take a different route than usual - we ended up doing a 3-point turn on an exit ramp and going the wrong way on a highway at 75 mph to avoid swamping his cute little monster. The police man did not do anything but point and laugh. Originally, Dad took me to my new Neurologist appt. today and I like her. I gave her honest answers and she let me know what she was thinking. My hands and arms are fine, save for some minor Carpal Tunnel. My legs are the problem. The pain and weakness I have been having are signs that may not be the best, but she is optomistic. I ordered a new medic alert bracelet and I should have it by Saturday or Monday. She said my eyes would be strong and that losing my vision may have been a one time deal. Disney in September may mean I have to think about my legs differntly. Heck I have seen a guy riding a segway with a broken leg in my area. That would do less damage to my pride.If I could not walk, I would have never been able to do 7 weeks at Logon Middle school earlier this Spring. Needless to say, today has been strange. We were nearly killed by an ambulance, a fire truck and two police cars on our second time heading home and that is when I decided that going anywhere was foolish. Dad and I bet $5 on whether or not Waterloo would be under Martial Law by 10 pm. Guess I won that one. I may not be able to sleep tonight.