Son of glug

In 1993, when this part of Iowa almost floated away, we were assured that what we were experiencing was a five hundred year flood. Now, I'm not very good at math, but I'm pretty sure that from 1993 to 2008 is less than five hundred years!

The Des Moines River will crest about eight local time tonight- and word is that it's going to be worse then 1993. Then, I lived in Kellogg- literally, a city (well, a real small town, actually) set on a hill. The mighty North Skunk was well below the town, so while we had trouble getting out of town to the south, it never really threatened us. Des Moines did not fare so well. It is not faring that well this time, either.

Last night I went down to Court Avenue, the restaurant and bar district, for the first time since the flooding began. While I hadn't paid much attention to the news, it seems that Court Avenue had been flooded earlier in the week. Everything was sand-bagged, and gushing hoses led from every basement into the streets. Incredibly, several places- including Hessen Haus and The Royal Mile, my two hangouts down there (an ethnic restaurant for each side of the family)- were open, though you had to crawl over sandbags to get in (actually, you could get into Hessen Haus through the raised outdoor patio, but I didn't think of that until I was already inside). When I entered the place (I know the staff quite well), I announced, "You didn't keep the Waters out after all." They were not amused.

Parenthetically, back in '93 the church council at St. Andrew's thought it would be nice to organize some folks from the congregation to help our neighbors in Colfax, which had been hit pretty badly, to sandbag against the still-rising flood. So I left the meeting table, went over to the phone, and called the Colfax town hall.The guy who answered the phone was quite interested- until they heard my name, whereupon he snorted, "Yeah, right," and hung up on me.

They were planning to have a Friday the 13th party at Hessen Haus tonight. They won't. Downtown has been evacuated. Principal Park, home of the Iowa Cubs (the big Cubs' Triple-A team) is reportedly under water, and we're hoping that they manage to keep the flooding out of the Water Works- which is located on the other side of Fleur Drive (already closed) from the Des Moines River. Otherwise, we in Des Moines may not smell too good by Monday, and the bottled water companies will do rather well in this market over the weekend.

Highway 5, where I usually leave 35 on the last leg of my trip home from work, is under water tonight. Fortunately, I have another route I can take- which I was planning to take anyway, since I have a meeting of the Des Moines Science Fiction Society tonight. Traditionally we all go out for dinner after the meeting; hopefully we'll be able to find somewhere halfway decent we can get to that's still dry. So far the closed section of Euclid Avenue, on which St. Mary is located, is still some distance east of the church. At the moment I still have a dry pathway from my apartment there on Sunday morning.

Well, I suppose I can't put off leaving work any longer (I got off half an hour ago, and I'm still sitting here). Hopefully, my evening will be a dry one.