Unbelievably stupid question about flooding in Iowa....

[Michelle T]

I live in Los Angeles county, and have been here my entire life. I say that just to show that I have absolutely no knowledge of living in a city with a river running through or nearby. We're lucky just to have occasional rain.

 

So, those of you living in areas that actually have reasonably large, natural rivers..... are the houses built right by the river? I'm looking at the pictures of the flooding in Iowa, and it is just unbelievable. But I can't understand how such large areas are submerged. Are these neighborhoods right by the river? How did the water spread so far, and so deep?

 

I could understand what happened in New Orleans, since that is a city essentially built like a bowl, lower than the nearby water levels. But how is Cedar Rapids, or any other midwestern city that floods, being so submerged? How big are these rivers?

 

Michelle T, who realizes some of you are shaking your head in wonder, but who has never actually seen a truly large river. :confused:

[abreakfromlife]

I don't live by a huge river like the Mississippi, but yeah, people build houses right on them. It's prime real estate. And, you get developers who build subdivisions in the floodplain next to the river. My dh is a civil engineer and comes home shaking his head at these subdivisions going in the floodplains next to the river, b/c as soon as the people get an inch of rain in their basements, they complain like nothing else to the city. What were you thinking building there in the first place??

[abreakfromlife]

part of why it is so deep - I still don't quite get it, even though I know why - is b/c the sewers get full and the pumps can't keep up, so they just stop working. So there's no drainage anywhere.................how a foot of rain can cause flooding so many feet deep, still seems so strange to me.....you just don't think that sewers are *that* incredibly important.

[Soph the vet]

Hi Michelle,

Not a dumb question at all. I live about 5 miles from the Mississippi River. I can only speak for the Twin Cities and its suburbs as the river actually winds its way through Minneapolis and St. Paul, not just straight between them as some people think.

Typically there is a lot of industry, mills, power plants, etc. right down at the river's edge. Some people have homes "on" the river but they are usually high up on bluff areas, well above any flood level. Other areas are low-lying yet there are residential areas within a mile. Downtown Minneapolis is very close to the River and so is downtown St. Paul. I think St. Paul is a little better protected from flooding if you are looking at elevation. Some of these cities in Iowa have residential areas or downtowns a mile from the river and that is just how severe the flooding is. Normally, the Mississippi is a wide river, 1/4-1/2 mile across at most points but when it floods it becomes many miles wide.

[Ashleen]

I don't know anything about Iowa, but I grew up near the Ohio River. There are streams and creeks that lead to the river, and one year there was a "flash flood" which is basically a sudden flood that happens during a thunderstorm. Well, the flash flood I'm thinking of wasn't even the Ohio River, it was two creeks. About 80 homes were destroyed and 26 people died. So yeah, in a town with a river, not only do you have homes on the riverfront, but you have streams and creeks running through town and they can rise suddenly and flood areas that are miles from the river.

[runningirl71]

We live by a river, the Wabash, just 5 blocks away from our house. Yes, there are houses right on the river.

 

Our area was one that did get flooding, but our city is high up enough that our actual city was not flooded. I live right on the border to IL/IN though, and can take a short 5 minute walk, over the bridge of the river, and there is the flooding.

 

I don't understand it all, but it has something with the river traveling downstream, and more than just rain water dumping into the river. And, I've heard about the sewers getting drained and then backing up too.

 

If I knew how to post a picture in a post, I would. DH took some pics of the flooding last week.

[Plaid Dad]

We have a river running right through our backyard. It's a tributary of a major waterway. We've been told that if the dam upstream from us is breached, we have about two hours to evacuate before the water reaches the elementary school around the corner. At that point, the whole lower level of our house would be submerged. And my dw wonders why I am so obsessive about emergency preparedness!

[GoVanGogh]

I grew up in SW Iowa, about 10 miles from the Missouri River.

If you look at a map of the US, you see that the center part of America is a giant basin, bordered with the Rocky Mountains on the West and the Appalachia Mountains to the East. The area between is the 'heartland' of America, America's breadbasket, the Midwest. Whatever you chose to call it, all the rain that falls in that region empty to one central spot - the Mississippi River. There are many large rivers that feed into the Mighty Mississippi - including the Ohio, the Missouri - plus many smaller rivers (such as the Raccoon River in Des Moines) and countless creeks.

In 'normal' years, the creeks and rivers can hold it, though they will occasionally overflow into the fields. (Think about the ancient Egyptians living along the Nile and welcoming the annual floods for their crops.) However, this year they have had record rainfall and all that water has really no where to go. The Corp has tried to control the river for years by a system of levees, which prove ineffective at holding back a flood of epic proportion, like this year. As proof that man can't control the flow of water, study Carter Lake, Iowa, which is now "technically" in Nebraska since the Missouri River shifted course in the late 1800's.

 

Yes, people do live along the rivers. However, most of the earlier settlers and early towns are built high, like Council "Bluffs," which is built on - yes - a bluff over looking the river. But many of the areas that flooded this time have never experienced flooding before. Example: Cedar Rapids has never flooded, not even in 1993. (The last 'infamous' flood year.) And some of the houses are miles from a creek or river.

The Midwest has had so much rain this year that they are seeing a lot of 'surface' flooding, or saturation flooding. They have simply had so much water that the ground cannot hold anymore. There is no where for the water to run so it sits. And sits. They have had several days of 8-10 inches of rain in just an hour or two. When your ground is already saturation and you receive that much water that fast, there is no where for it to go. Even the tiniest, mildest creek 5 miles from your home is then subject to flash flooding, which is what they are seeing a lot of this year.

It is amazing to think that when the ground is already soaked, just a few inches of rain can make a creek or river rise 4 feet in just minutes!

 

Remember, too, that early settlers always lived along waterways. This was true in Ancient times, just as it was true in early America. People needed waterways for transportation just as they needed it for watering their animals or fields, for the grain mills, etc. Some people moved on, away from the water. However a good number of people stayed along the rivers, which is why you see large cities with rivers running through them. Again, glance at a map and you see that the Midwest is a criss-cross pattern creeks and rivers. I doubt you really could live 'away' from a river in that region if you even wanted to.

Hope that helps.

[LinRTX]

I think I am replying to the post about the creeks flooding in Ohio, but I'm really new to posting to just a single message, so if this not in the right place it should be under the Ohio River one.

 

If this is the flash flood I'm thinking about it took place in 1990 (June 14) and the creeks were really small. The on behind my aunt and uncle's house we could walk down to and wade in. The water never was even to my knees (and I am quite short). Until the night of the flood when it wiped out my aunt and uncle's trailor and it took them days to find the bodies. My oldest daughter was just 9 months old and had had breathing problems since birth. I was flying back to the funeral from Texas with her but she started running a high fever. I could not risk fjlying with her and her getting anything serious so far from her specialist. I never got to formally say good-byr. They were like a second set of parents to me and this was like home since my dad was always traveling with the Air Force.

 

Ok, enough of the sad memory. Flooding can be fast and cause a seemingly harmless creek to become a death trap.

 

Linda

[sassenach]

Another factor is that there was a large snow melt this year. The rivers started off at much higher than normal levels, and then add to it all of the rain. If you get a huge amount of rain, for example- 12 inches, it's not just that the water rises 12 inches. The entire area drains INTO the river. So take 12 inches, multiply it by hundreds of square miles and throw that into the river on top of the snow melt. That brings the river levels up so high that dams and levies start breaking, which flood out the contents of the river back into these cities. Cities that normally drain their rain water back into the river. Voila. The closest I ever lived to a body of water was in New Orleans. I lived 2 blocks from Lake Pontchartrain. That was about 8 years ago.

[Perry]

This is all good information- the only thing I would add is that it's likely that the increase in use of agricultural tile drains is contributing to increases in flooding. With all the snow melt and rain, and the ground being completely saturated (and much of it now tiled), there was nowhere for the water to go except to spread out.

 

I live in Cedar Rapids and nobody ever expected anything like this to happen. It was worse than the 500 year flood estimates. Few of the houses are actually right on the river, they are a few blocks away. Almost all of the riverfront property is business/industrial or part of downtown. The residential areas that flooded wouldn't be considered prime real estate - it's the older part of town and the people living there are mostly poor and/or elderly.

[DarcyM]

While some are riverfront properties, most of these homes are not reckless development.

 

I can see how, if you've never seen a river such as the Mighty Miss, it might be hard to understand how devastating and how quick a river can overtake a town.

 

Both Cedar Rapids and Des Moines have major rivers running through the cities. Nothing as broad or powerful as the Miss, but both cities straddle rivers: Cedar Rapids straddles the Cedar River. Des Moines straddles the Des Moines River but also has the Raccoon River nearby. (They really thought out those names, didn't they?)

 

The midwest has been carved out by glaciers; there are some low-lying areas (as well as bluffs) where neighborhoods have grown. In Cedar Rapids, some of those homes completely under water are 2 or more miles from a water source. If you lived 2 miles from the ocean, you wouldn't expect the water to ever reach you. Many of those neighborhoods don't require flood insurance (this will haunt these home owners) because they aren't in a "flood plain."

 

What got Des Moines was more than the river. Directly north of Des Moines is Saylorville Lake. Saylorville Lake is the closest thing Iowa has to an ocean. In some part of the lake, you cannot see the other shore.

 

After 73" of snow, two weeks of tornadoes, storms and rain... the dam at the lake was threatening to break. To avoid the absolute devastation of that dam breaking, they had to open the flood gates. You can see this on video if you go to whotv.com. It's unbelievable. It saved the dam, preserving the lake, the entire metro area... but it flooded the city. Quickly. The city tried to build levies and sandbags. It was just too much. Incidentally, the city learned a lot since 1993 and those lessons proved fruitful this year.

 

Snow-saturated grounds, contant weeks of rain, then purposefully emptying Saylorville lake... Des Moines was downstream. The mess here is incredible.

 

The Des Moines river is a tributary to the Mississippi River. So all that water is now headed south and east. Now hitting Mark Twain's stomping grounds... Soon to be in St. Louis... Eventually it will dump all that mess into the gulf.

 

As for Cedar Rapids... they didn't build the levy system that Des Moines did after the Floods of '93. They weren't ready for this much water. The Cedar Valley is just that - a valley. And now it's a wet, smelly, muddy, valley with hundred of millions of dollars in damage.

 

And the Cedar River is a tributary to the Iowa River - which is why Iowa City is now under water. That college town had a lot of damage to the arts campus, the auditorium, the city park and shakespeare theater (modeled after the globe), dorms and fraternities.

 

The circumstances were just all right (or wrong) for all this water. One factor alone wouldn't do it... it was the lethal combo of the 1, 2, 3 punch.

 

And there's the long of it. ;)

[Perry]

Actually, the Cedar River and Iowa River meet at Columbus Junction, downstream from Iowa City. The underlying causes of the flooding were the same, but the Cedar River itself wasn't involved in the flooding of Iowa City. Iowa City is just a few miles downstream from the Coralville Reservoir.

 

 

[Renee in NC]

This is all good information- the only thing I would add is that it's likely that the increase in use of agricultural tile drains is contributing to increases in flooding. With all the snow melt and rain, and the ground being completely saturated (and much of it now tiled), there was nowhere for the water to go except to spread out.

 

I live in Cedar Rapids and nobody ever expected anything like this to happen. It was worse than the 500 year flood estimates. Few of the houses are actually right on the river, they are a few blocks away. Almost all of the riverfront property is business/industrial or part of downtown. The residential areas that flooded wouldn't be considered prime real estate - it's the older part of town and the people living there are mostly poor and/or elderly.

 

That's what I was thinking. We lived in Dubuque, IA (my dh is from there) and the poor people lived by the river and the wealthier people lived in the bluffs. That was true in Hannibal, MO in the 20s, 30s, and 40s as well - my grandmother tells me stories of the children who came from the river bottoms to school.

[runningirl71]

Another factor is that there was a large snow melt this year. The rivers started off at much higher than normal levels, and then add to it all of the rain. If you get a huge amount of rain, for example- 12 inches, it's not just that the water rises 12 inches. The entire area drains INTO the river. So take 12 inches, multiply it by hundreds of square miles and throw that into the river on top of the snow melt. That brings the river levels up so high that dams and levies start breaking, which flood out the contents of the river back into these cities. Cities that normally drain their rain water back into the river. Voila. The closest I ever lived to a body of water was in New Orleans. I lived 2 blocks from Lake Pontchartrain. That was about 8 years ago.

 

You stated so nicely, what I was trying to say in a couple of words. I'm such a dork!

 

Actually, the flooding that occurred here across the river wasn't even b/c we had heavy rain at the time of the flood. We had a lot of rain this spring, making the ground pretty saturated. But, the flooding here occurred b/c of all the rain that was received an hour or two up north and to the east. All that rain drained right into our river, and as it came downstream, more and more water drained into the river, causing the river to swell and overflow when it reached us. The levy broke on the IL side of the river causing the river to overflow into the farmer's fields. This, coupled with all the rain in the spring, there was just nowhere for the water to go, so it sits there. Here, the levies are just made of dirt, not limestone or compacted gravel. So, the dirt soaks up the water, making it unstable and easier to break. So, even if the levy is holding, but someone decides to go and walk on top of it, that added pressure on the softened up dirt, could cause the levy to break. They had a road closed here just so people wouldn't stop and try and walk on top of the levy to see the swelling river.

 

DH just told me that parts of the Mississippi are being sand bagged as it is swelling from all the water draining into it from up north. So, a week after the flooding and blue skies, there is still flooding occurring.

[DB in NJ]

dh is from Burlington, Iowa, which has been in the news the last few days. We lived there during the 1993 flood, and this one looks worse....

 

The explanation then was the big snow melt-off up river and a really, REALLY wet spring. Burlington is mostly up on bluffs, but the downtown and some houses are right on the river. The houses that are built on, say, Tama Road, are in what's called the bottoms, which tends to flood if someone cries too much. Why people stay there, I'll never know.

 

The downtown area is raised up from the Mississippi, but when the water rises to this extreme, there's no holding it back. The entire downtown is above the river and uphill, but even still, the water rose all the way up to 2nd Street back in 93.

[summer]

Houses are generallly not up against the river but rather a short distance up from the river. Not just back, but also higher ground. At least a little flooding happens near rivers when the water is high and such, so you do give a little leeway, just this is insane what is going on. Plus, I know some of these flooded places are a good mile or more from the river. I grew up there from 1970 (baby) to 1992 and never saw anything like this.

 

Even in downtown Minnepolis, where the Mississippi runs through, there are high banks. I know they are fortified with cement in many areas. That goes around the downtown. I have never seen houses as close to rivers as those downtown buildings are, but it was clearly made for.

[Perry]

Here's an interesting article about the recent flooding:

Iowa flooding could be man’s fault, experts say

[Michelle T]

I live in Los Angeles county, and have been here my entire life. I say that just to show that I have absolutely no knowledge of living in a city with a river running through or nearby. We're lucky just to have occasional rain.

 

So, those of you living in areas that actually have reasonably large, natural rivers..... are the houses built right by the river? I'm looking at the pictures of the flooding in Iowa, and it is just unbelievable. But I can't understand how such large areas are submerged. Are these neighborhoods right by the river? How did the water spread so far, and so deep?

 

I could understand what happened in New Orleans, since that is a city essentially built like a bowl, lower than the nearby water levels. But how is Cedar Rapids, or any other midwestern city that floods, being so submerged? How big are these rivers?

 

Michelle T, who realizes some of you are shaking your head in wonder, but who has never actually seen a truly large river. :confused:

 

 

Very helpful to hear these descriptions from midwesterners! It's hard for me to even picture what it would be like to have many rivers or streams nearby. I didn't realize that Iowa was so criss-crossed with rivers. Looking at a standard map, only the really major rivers are shown, so it's hard to grasp how many tributaries those rivers have. Guess I need to spend some time studying North American river systems!

 

And I did not mean to imply that Iowans brought flooding on themselves by building too close to a river. I realized my OP might have sounded that way. Believe me, living in Southern California, where houses are routinely built on hillsides just ripe for wildfires, I would never point fingers! I just didn't know if houses were build near rivers or not.

 

Anyway, thanks for all the replies, they have helped me understand the flooding going on. It's too bad there's no way to get that water out of Iowa, and here to California, where we are in drought conditions.

 

Just to really bring home how "Los Angeles" I am, not only have I never seen a "real" river, I've only seen snow falling out of the sky twice in my life. Both times up in the mountains. But I HAVE been in the Pacific Ocean many times, so at least I have that!

Michelle T

[Tammyla]

It's too bad there's no way to get that water out of Iowa, and here to California, where we are in drought conditions.

 

 

 

Trust me, you do not want any of our Cedar River water right now. ;) There were days when we wished we could send some south, but sharing this mess with an enemy...never ever.

[Phred]

I think what most people don't get is the vast amount of water involved here. I saw footage of St. Louis. The arch there is on riverfront land but it's easily 30 or 40 feet above where the river is normally. Today the water is right at the base of the arch. That means the river is filling... well, like this...

 

 

V

 

The bottom of the 'V' is where the river normally runs and that's a lot of water to begin with but now the top of the 'V' is filling which is four times the amount of water normally in the river on TOP of what's there already. And that's not even close to accurate because it's a much wider, flatter 'V'. And that's for a thousand miles.

 

For some areas the problem is that the water runs in a sort of valley where once the water is over the edges it's like your bathtub overflowing... the water then runs for the lowest ground. In my house the water would be flowing down the stairs. Near where I am if the water crests the banks it runs for the farms which are lower than the banks. These farms are like vast bowls for the water to fill in... and from their the nearby cities and towns... well, you've seen the pictures. The water just fills in.

 

Anyway, I just felt like typing. Cheers!

 

 

 

[GWTW93]

I live in Hannibal, MO, so I get the chance to see the Mississippi River every day. I was also here for the flood of '93 (my first year living here) and have learned a lot about rivers over the last 15 years.

 

Here in Hannibal, we have a large bluff that overlooks the River, so that's the prime real estate here. It is so high up that there is no way a flood would reach it, unless your name is Noah ;)

 

The snow melt does have a lot to do with flooding but this year, at least for our area, it's the intensity and amount of rain. If the rainfall Iowa had seen had happened gradually, say over a couple of months, this would not have happened. Because Iowa received literally buckets of rain and over a great number of days, you see the rivers swell.

 

There are also a great many tributaries that run into the Mississippi. Those smaller rivers also flooded well over their banks this year, adding to the catastrophic flooding that we're seeing right now.

 

Many of the towns along the Mississippi have levees, either earthen or manmade, or flood gates. Hannibal is fortunate enough to have an earthen levee that surrounds the downtown area. In those areas where the earthen levee was removed to add streets, we have flood gates. So, when the River is projected to reach a certain crest (I think it's 20 feet here), the flood gates are put in place. The flood gates were just installed in 1992, one year before the Flood of '93.

 

We also have another smaller creek called Bear Creek that is wreaking havoc on some homes on the south side of town. Those homes are built near the Mississippi but aren't prime real estate. Because of the way Bear Creek runs through Hannibal, the city was unable to install flood gates for that side of town. Unfortuately, many of those homes are flooded right now.

 

Hannibal has tourist attractions downtown. Our riverboat is not normally affected by floods, but this one is so intense that barge and riverboat traffic has been halted for some time now due to flow of the river. Many of the other tourist attractions are on the side of the flood wall that allows them to stay open for business even during times of flooding.