So far, the report this morning is "just minor street flooding," but I also know that the city is more focused on the east side where they put all of their main efforts into projecting with the large and expensive cubes filled with sand to make a wall(there is a political joke in there somewhere about building a wall and someone paying for it, but that horse has been beaten to death).
The west side is where the houses are, and were a number of historical business districts are, so who knows if the mayor's report this morning includes both sides of the river, or just the one that the city wants to protect more (expensive businesses vs. low occupancy, low income housing)... I'm a bit snarky about it all this morning, but working on the west side this weekend and hearing the frustrations of people that live there has taken hold in my thoughts.
I live well away from this area, but work somewhat close to the northern flooding areas. No issues getting to work, and traffic is pretty light as all of the Cedar Rapids schools are closed. I know that the ground my by home is fairly saturated with water as my neighbor behind me has his sump pump running about 25% (on 1 minute for every time that it is off 4 minutes) getting water before it gets into his basement. Lucky for me that I sit on higher ground, so water doesn't flow into my yard.
We were supposed to get rain Sunday and yesterday, but didn't which is helping all around.
The flood waters are expected to crest at just over 23 feet still by about noon today. Then it will start going down, but will be above flood stage for almost a week. So while the peak is coming soon, and then will start getting better, the structures put in place will still need to hold back massive amounts of additional water for a while.
