Flooding in Iowa - Page 2

C-D-P · #11 (**permalink**) 06-18-2008, 05:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mack

Clearly god is punishing the midwest for the legalization of gay marriage in California.

*credit to the Daily Show

I disagree, because God does not punish anyone until they attempt to join his kingdom.

Quote:

Originally Posted by JP5

I was living in Chesterfield, Missouri during the flood of 1993. It was devastating for a lot of people, but people helping people and, for the most part,nobody whining and crying about how the gov't wasn't taking care of them.

93 was a bad year. I remember sandbagging everything. It was a rough time.

Quote:

I also question why people continue to build and re-build in these flood plain areas. They shouldn't be allowed to do so because it only costs ALL of us.

I would have to attribute this to a few different things.

1. It is cheaper for them to build in the floodplain, because others do not want to, and as such the cost is less. Risk - cost + profit.

2. They are stupid and can easily move elsewhere.

3. Like the business that my father runs. The risk of flooding hitting the plants they own is less than the money they would spend moving said plants.

superdude17* · #12 (**permalink**) 06-18-2008, 07:42 PM

sucks.

its america, we rebuild. we don't let natural barriers, terrorists, outerspace get in our way. its time the liberals start thinking this way, specifically on our natural reserve of oil.

lavell12 · #13 (**permalink**) 06-19-2008, 09:12 AM

liberals always talk about the dangerous of drilling for oil in the US but during Katrina while everything in NO was destroyed the Oil Rigs there were fine.
Or just maybe that is the one thing Bush didn't blow up b/c he is an oil man remember

CptnRodent · #14 (**permalink**) 06-19-2008, 09:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by superdude17*

sucks.

its america, we rebuild. we don't let natural barriers, terrorists, outerspace get in our way. its time the liberals start thinking this way, specifically on our natural reserve of oil.

Wtf?

**SpotsCat** · #15 (**permalink**) 06-19-2008, 02:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by skeptic-f

The mighty Mississippi River will let other states potentially share Iowa's pain over the next couple of months. All that water has to go somewhere and a lot of that somewhere is all the way down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico. There'll be a kind of slow-motion surge or crest travelling down the river until it finds a poorly maintained stretch of levee, at which point another state or states will get to share some of the pain. Let's just hope the repairs in New Orleans have been effective enough, or the state and federal governments could really be embarrassed in a couple of months.

After the great flood of 1927, the Corps has put a tremendous effort into maintaining the levees on the Lower Mississippi river - I doubt any of them would break.

Once the Ohio river joins the Upper Mississippi river at Cairo, Illinois, the channel becomes considerably wider and deeper and able to handle a greater volume of water.

FWIW - The absolute worst disaster possible on the Lower Mississippi wouldn't be the flooding of New Orleans IMHO, it would be the breaching of the Old River Control structure. Were that structure to be breached - like it almost was back in 1973 - the Mississippi would shift from it's present course, and begin to flow down the Atchafalaya river to the Gulf of Mexico.

This is from the website I hyperlinked to --

Quote:

In the aftermath of the huge floods that would cause the main flow of the river to jump to the Atchafalaya River, aside from the cost, anxiety, tragedy, and aggravation of dealing with massive amounts of water being in the wrong place, there would be lingering issues that would change the way of life on the lower Mississippi. Instead of 70% flow down the lower Mississippi and 30% flow down the Atchafalaya, the percentages would probably reverse. The Atchafalaya would be a rushing, raging river, even during the fall for a period of time until it scoured the channel and filled in the lower reaches so that the flow would diminish. Morgan City would have to be relocated, as would other communities and many businesses, possibly including the massive infrastructure of the offshore oil and gas industry. Fisheries would be altered measurably all across the delta. Oyster reefs would be immediately destroyed, and would take several years to reestablish and become productive (no erysters!). It would probably take two decades to adapt to the new environment around present day Morgan City. Additionally, pipelines, bridges, and the like that cross the Atchafalaya would be destroyed or rendered unsafe. The ruptured natural gas pipelines would place stress on fuel supplies for energy companies, but they would quickly change to more costly fuel sources and have little or no interruption of service. Imagine the traffic jams when and if bridges on I-10, U.S. 90, and U.S. 190 collapse (what about the railroads)? All trans-state traffic would have to be rerouted to I-20 via I-55 through Jackson, Mississippi, adding up to 615 miles to the trip (not to mention time delays from the traffic jams). The protective levees of the Atchafalaya Basin would have to be upgraded to handle the new pressure from spring flows. And, oh my gosh, think of the negative impact on the crawfish supply!

Comparing the loss of New Orleans to the tremendous ecological impact of the Mississippi switching its channel to the Atchafalaya is like comparing apples and oranges, but neither scenario is good for the country.

submarinepainter · #16 (**permalink**) 06-19-2008, 02:11 PM

I hope everyone is okay, God Bless them

Mack · #17 (**permalink**) 06-19-2008, 03:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JP5

I was living in Chesterfield, Missouri during the flood of 1993. It was devastating for a lot of people, but people helping people and, for the most part,nobody whining and crying about how the gov't wasn't taking care of them. I also question why people continue to build and re-build in these flood plain areas. They shouldn't be allowed to do so because it only costs ALL of us.

Downtown Cedar Rapids and Iowa City aren't flood plains. This was a flood that is only supposed to happen less than once every 500 years.

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