On the way back we took some pictures of the submerged Cedar Rapids downtown. this shows just how hight the water is and dwarfs 1993.
There used to be three bridges across the river but now they are totally submerged. The railway bridges had hopper cars filled with rocks on them to weight them down but one of the bridges collapsed and somewhat dammed up the river. Many a building including the Library are up to their windows in water and the water treatment building doesn't work because it is submerged. The Alliant Energy tower, which is the emergency power station, is rendered useless because it is under about six feet of water so there has to be a door-to-door survey on who has power and who doesn't.
Because of the water treatment building being useless, the city is running on 25% as much water as normal and that means that you need to restrict water use by not taking showers (or short ones.)
The crest of the flood was expected on Tuesday, then today (Friday) but it is not expected when downtown will be drained and power is out "indefinitely" in the ares that can't be reached.
In one of my earlier posts I put, "will it be like 1993? only time will tell." The answer: no it was far, far worse.
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