Rising water forces evacuation of Iowa hospital

[Lone_Star_Dem]

Source: Associated press

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa - Rising water from the Cedar River forced the evacuation of a downtown hospital Friday after residents of more than 3,000 homes fled for higher ground. A railroad bridge collapsed, and 100 city blocks were under water.

The hospital's 176 patients, including about 30 patients in a nursing home facility at the hospital, were being evacuated to other hospitals in the region. The evacuation started late Thursday night and continued Friday morning in the city of 124,000 residents.

"Some are frail and so it's a very delicate process with them," said Karen Vander Sanden, a hospital spokeswoman.

Water was seeping into the hospital's lower levels, where the emergency generator is located, said Dustin Hinrichs of the Linn County emergency operations center.

"They proactively and preventatively started evacuation basically guessing on the fact they were going to lose power," he said.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080613/ap_on_re_us/midwest_flooding

[emmadoggy]

1. Ugh. I watched KCRG from CR off and on all day yesterday....

My internet service was out all day yesterday, which drove me crazy, so I wanted to keep up with what was going on. I'll tell you, once you start watching it is hard to stop. KCRG was on the air NON-STOP with NO COMMERCIALS ALL DAY yesterday. I finally turned off the tv at ten-to-midnight last night and they were still on.
To see the pictures, hear the stories, listen to all the reports about how far the water was reaching with each passing hour.....it is just hard to wrap your brain around what is happening.

Cedar Rapids previous flood record was 20.0 ft, set in 1929. They are going to be cresting today at 31.8 ft!!!!!! :wow: So nearly 12 FT. higher than the previous RECORD. That's more than half-again as much. Needless to say, they are in uncharted territory. When the new crest was determined, they pretty much said they had little idea of what to expect because this kind of flooding has never been concieved of. They evacuated the 500-YEAR flood plain and yesterday had to keep moving it further beyond even that!

This is an epic disaster for Cedar Rapids, and Iowa City and Coralville are going to be in the same situation. Last night, word came from Anamosa that the levy next to their sewage treatment plant breached and they had raw sewage flowing out into parts of their town. It was so sad to see video of the Czech museum, the public library, the African-American museum, a renovated theatre, all with water nearly a full story deep.

This is going to be monumentally expensive and will have long-lasting impacts for our state (and beyond, probably, because of the impacts to the crops).


:cry: :cry: :cry: