Iowa homeowners brace for the start of flooding season

Iowa has been victim to two of most devastating floods in history of the United States. These floods both accumulated almost thirty billion dollars worth of damaged. These catastrophic floods occurred in 1993 and 2008. In over a couple months floods waters destroyed over a hundred thousand square miles worth of land in over a half dozen states. The weather patterns prior to the Iowa flooding gave a bit of foreshadowing of what was to come. In 1992 the fall season brought excessive amounts of rain that resulted in above average moisture in the soil and higher water levels in reservoirs. To follow, the winter brought excessive amounts of snowfall. Spring brought the typical weather with storms over the already saturated land. Between April 1st and August 31st the eastern-central parts of Iowa had already experience forty-eight inches of rain.

The first of severe flooding began in May from the Redwood River in Minnesota. As early as June 7th levees were already being reported of being overtopped and breaking. By the end of June flood levels had gone done in the Mississippi and Missouri River. As July came around it brought more heavy rains which brought water levels back up. The excessive rainfall had put some areas at six to seven inches about average amount of rainfall. From July 11th to the July 22nd the Des Moines water treatment facility was flooded. This resulted in the plant to be shutdown and left no running water for citizens. Once the plant was reopened and running water was restored people were allowed to bathe and flush toilets. The water was declared safe to consume not until July 29th. To help stop flooding major sandbagging took place along the lower Missouri and Mississippi River. In some cases the sandbags withstood the waters and in some cases not so successful. To make flood matters worse in the Illinois areas a man by the name of James Scott contributed to the flood. He purposely pulled away several sandbag from a levee hold back waters. He did this with the intentions of trapping his wife on the other side of the river so he could continue partying. The removing of the sandbag caused the levee to break and more than a thousand other levees to fail also. The breached flooded caused damages to fourteen thousand acres of farmland and destroyed buildings, causing significant water damage for hundreds of properties. He was arrested for his actions and sentenced to life imprisonment for intentionally causing a catastrophe.