A hairy escape from Iowa

The flooding only gets worse in Iowa. Friday, the UI cancelled classes for the next week. If, in fact, the campus is habitable after only a week, and the roads passable around town, I'll be deeply, deeply amazed. But it was about 12:30 when we found out the UI was closing, and minutes later, when we realized class was the only reason we came home, we decided to head back to OK.

It wasn't as easy as that, however. The next five hours seemed to last FOREVER until, at 6 p.m., we were finally on the road to Dad's house in St. Louis on the first leg of our trip home.

First, because my building on campus is right on the river and one of those to be evacuated, we were told by officials to get everything out that we might need to work for weeks. My comps start August 18th and about half of my readings are in my office. I weighed whether or not I would need these books, but when my friend said they were telling us to be prepared to lose access until August, a rescue mission was in order.

So we decided that Eric would go to campus for class and retrieve my books, which we knew would take much longer than normal due to restricted road access. He left ten minutes after our decision to leave, at 1 pm, with a dolly to carry all my books.

When he got to my office at 2, I didn't realize that he had had to park waaaaay up the hill and then walk down the hill that defies an Oklahoman's imagination with the dolly to my building. Adler wasn't supposed to be evacuated until Saturday at 3, but the power was already off, there was no elevator, and they were pumping water out of the basement. He grabbed the thirty or so books I needed...

...and by the time he got back to the Jeep, somehow found out that they'd actually cancelled his class for the day. This was 2:30; he called to say it was time to go home.

So I started packing us up- "us" being Katie and me. Forty-five minutes later, I called to see where Eric was because the drive shouldn't have taken longer than an hour, even with congestion on the highway. He hadn't even gotten to the highway; at this point, there were only two roads out of Iowa City and the traffic was backed up. Keep in mind, the Iowa City-Coralville area is about the size of Norman, and there are about six or seven access points to get to the highway. But bridges were closed, roads were flooding, and only two roads were left that did not cross the river.

Then, Eric called to ask if I could pack his clothes. It annoyed me at first- he was supposed to be home any minute and could do it himself. At this point it was well after three, and Eric had just heard, as he languished on the paralyzed highway, that they were closing the highway we needed to get out of town at 6 pm.

This highway is I-380, and we take a portion of I-80 to get to school. There are other roads connecting Iowa City and Cedar Rapids, but as you might guess, those roads were all covered with water. The Iowa River, which is what is terrorizing the UI, crosses 380 and 80. It's also flooding surrounding fields, which have been creeping up on 380 for weeks. It was this six mile portion, comprising this low area and the bridge over the Iowa River, that they needed to close.

In other words, if we were to take the detour to get between Iowa City and Cedar Rapids, we would have to head north and west to Des Moines on U.S. 20, south on I-35 to I-80, and then east on I-80. What is normally a 35 minute trip would take at least five hours. Those are the only roads available with all the flooding statewide.

When the traffic northbound was so slow that Eric moved maybe 2 miles in an hour, I loaded the car, the dog, the baby and the doors of his Jeep and headed to my friend Choonghee's house in North Liberty, which was just south of the area to be closed on the highway. Katie and I made it to Choonghee's about 5:15, but Eric hadn't even gotten to a point where he could turn around and head south again on 380. Slowly, slowly, though, he got to the airport exit, and made it to Choonghee's about 5:45. Right at 6 pm, just as they closed the highway, we had filled up with gas and headed south to Dad's in St. Louis.

Now, we're spectators to the flood here in Oklahoma. Because the water in Cedar Rapids should be operational by the end of the week and I have a thrice-rescheduled ultrasound on my thyroid on Friday, we'll probably head back Thursday. It was pretty tense, though, getting down 380- Eric and I could have realistically been stranded on complete opposite sides of the flood. That would have been extremely depressing. And now, seeing the immense mobilization of sandbagging volunteers in IC, I feel a little guilty that we left without helping. As Mom said, though, there's nothing we can do now, but we can help when we get back. No doubt, there will be plenty to do.