Thursday, June 12, 2008

Water Everywhere

I just got off the phone with my dad in Iowa. I was hoping he still had power and clean water after a good portion of their city was closed down due to flooding. So far so good except for intermittant power outages but more rain is falling today and tonight. It is hard to imagine the destruction if you've never seen what water can do.

This year is being compared to the great floods of 1993. That was the summer my two young children and I did a driving vacation of Iowa, Illinois and Missouri to visit family. We traversed the flooded Mississippi and left St Louis one day ahead of the bridge closure that would have trapped us there. The scariest experience was crossing from Iowa to Missouri over the only remaining connection, sandbagged to hold back the water. My daughter was sure we were all going to drown. We were never in any real danger as we planned carefully and kept a constant check on road closings but the scenes we witnessed were incredible. 2008 is even worse.

It is a scary situation and one I will have to monitor closely. I'm due back in Iowa for a 10 day visit on 6/22 so hope the waters recede and no ark appears! Events like this are a good reminder that everyday stresses like rising food and gas prices are not major issues compared to losing a home or livelihood in a natural disaster.

On a side note, I hate to think how many knitting stashes have been lost to basement flooding! I wonder if the Red Cross ever thought of collecting yarn as a way to de-stress anxious knitters :-)

2 comments:

Em said...

I'm sending good thoughts out to your Dad's area. It's sad to see so many people losing so much to water and wind. It's the 21st century, if we're not living on the moon yet, shouldn't we at least have our weather figured out?

Amy Lane said...

Wow--with em, I'm sending good thoughts out to your family. And I've always wondered it sending yarn and hooks or needles to shelters wouldn't be considered an act of mercy.