Glug 4: This Time, It's Personal

First things first: Cedar Rapids, as you've probably heard, is essentially a smaller New Orleans. The downtown of the city- amazingly- is built on an island in the middle of the flood-prone river. From all indications, the devastation is unbelievable.

Here in Des Moines, a levee burst Saturday night, inundating the Birdland neighborhood- which lies in between my apartment and St. Mary. I had to take a lengthly and unexpected detour on the way to church yesterday. North High, where my former wife, Denise, went to school, is under water. In fact, the whole neighorhood is essentially a lake.

Apparently the damage at Principal Park wasn't too bad, because the Iowa Cubs are playing there again.

About a third of the campus of the Univesity of Iowa in Iowa City is under water. The situation is pretty bad- and worst of all, the Iowa river isn't expected to crest for several days.

On an unrelated note, I went out Saturday night to celebrate my birthday a day early at The Waterfront, a seafood restaurant a safe distance from any water. However, it turned out that not even in dryness is there safety. As I sat in the seafood bar scarfing down half a dozen raw oysters, a driver- apparently very hungry- drove into the the wall perhaps five yards away from me, breaking the windows, knocking one window physically out of the wall, and opening a gaping hole in the wall itself.

The employees all thought somebody had set off a bomb. Fortunately, nobody was hurt. Turned out an elderly driver, mistakeningly thinking his car was in reverse rather than drive, tried to pull out of his parking space- and gave his vehicle far too much gas.