I've been avoiding the areas near the river up until now. I didn't really want to see it, so it was no trouble following the police's advice to stay out unless you had business there. But all but a few streets are now open for regular traffic, and I had business in the area, so I drove by the Czech Village neighborhood and some other areas. I'd seen enough pictures that I thought I was prepared. But it was still shocking to see block after block of houses with huge piles of garbage in front of them. It looked like most people were tossing everything that had been below the second floor. The water didn't just get things wet; the current broke up furniture and upended large appliances. Mole is destroying a lot of what was untouched by the water. Most of the houses had yellow stickers, which meant people could go in to clean up, but they can't live there or even have electricity turned on yet. Some houses had no garbage piles. Those were the ones with red stickers indicating that it wasn't safe to even go inside.

I was going to try to link to individual before-and-after pictures, but I don't have the heart. Our local paper has lots of photos posted. It looks like almost the entire adult collection of the public library is gone. Pictures of some of the businesses and homes affected are here.

In my last post about the flood, I mentioned how stupid some people can be. But most Iowans are amazing; I'm in awe of their energy, determination and altruism. A businessman who realized he wouldn't be able to save his restaurant asked his employees to pull down their sandbag wall and move it to another business down the street. And they did it. On a larger scale, hundreds of volunteers pushed themselves past exhaustion to pile sandbags around University of Iowa buildings. When the water didn't reach one of the largest walls, they trudged back and loaded the sandbags on trucks so they could be carted downstream where the flooding continues. (Any sandbags that were soaked in flood water are toxic and have to be gathered by special teams.)

I spoke to someone at work yesterday about volunteering to help with coordinating aid to our employees. I need to find more ways to get involved, not just in flood relief, but in other ways. I've been slumming since the caucuses.