It Comes in Threes

This has been a tough week - a student cheating, prom dress failure, and today's problem?

You'd think it was the time of Noah. And not just here - all across the midwest. Chicago got 8 inches of rain in twenty-four hours!

As I pulled out of Hershey's drive and headed down 300 after school, this is the sight I saw just down the road from the building.

That's a minivan that drove off the road into a cornfield so flooded that the water is up to the undercarriage of the car! And there is no creek or river nearby - this is rainwater that's collected in the field. The ground is saturated and there is no place for it to go.

As I continued on 300, the road was flooded over for about thirty to forty feet near Archerville.

My neighbor, Lynn Wood, took this picture of our neighborhood creek. I don't have a picture of the lake, but I have never seen the lake so high up its banks.

I tried to drive south down North River Road to check on my mom and this is what I encountered just before her house:

A few foolish people were driving through it. I watched, and when the water went over one car's headlights, I backed up, turned around, and went back up Soldier's Home Road, down Happy Hollow, and onto North River Road again, approaching my mom's home from the south. (This photo is in front of her next door neighbor's home.)

She is watching the Wabash River as it creeps up into her yard. So far she still has access to her driveway. She's going to spend the night here probably tomorrow when the water does breach the road in front of her home, stranding her if she's still there.

Sarah took some pictures from around Iowa City and Tiffin.

 This is I-80 with water right up to its edge. In 2008 they had to close I-80 for days due to flooding - the water actually covered the freeway.

 A road out in the Tiffin/North Liberty area near where Sarah works.

 Highway 6 (it goes across Iowa), the railroad tracks that run alongside it, and an overpass, also near Tiffin and North Liberty.

I am wondering if maybe we will have a delay tomorrow morning due to flooded roads that are impassable to buses.