Praise

So the terrible storm from this afternoon ended up NOT dumping much rain in this area. At least not in the area of Danette's house.

The water has gone down by several feet already. We took a drive after going to help some people with their basement, and it was good to see that some streets that were under water yesterday are starting to look better. But other areas are still completely flooded, with semis floating down the roads. The city announced that 1,300 city blocks were under water.

For those not from this area and wondering about the 500-year-flood thing, it simply relates to the likelihood of a flood like this occurring. In other words, chances are so slim for this to happen, it might happen once in five centuries And this article explains why the floods occurred. It has to do with the record snow this winter, following by record rains this spring.

The highway between here and Iowa City has been closed close to the airport. It's 27 miles from here to there, but the detour is 281-miles!

The water issue is critical around here. We girls have been laughing so hard about the fact that we've been doing hard, physical labor, but not able to take showers. We stand in line at places (like the Dairy Queen, an essential stop, you know, after a long day) and wondering about clean people...

OK, we understand some who live in the country have wells. In fact, tomorrow we'll be visiting a family with a well so we, too, can finally get cleaned up. It's about time. Especially after cleaning gutters today at a friend's house, and lugging around lots of mildewy boxes for a couple of days... We've been using water from the dehumidifier and the shop-vac to flush the toilet. We've been washing hands with hand sanitizer. We're all ready to take showers and wash out hair! Tonight, the city is shutting down water completely. Red Cross is distributing drinking water for free, which is a blessing. And it's going to be critical to have that as the city water gets shut off.

I'm tired, heading to bed. And I'm very thankful we didn't have much rain this evening. They're predicting a 60% chance of showers tomorrow. Praying that it won't happen...