A Queer Mobile

Now for some garden shots

You have no idea how anxious we are to get all our flood recovery done and to get back to our life. In that spirit, here's a gallery of our garden for 2008. I'll be posting earlier shots. With all the wet the garden is utterly amazing.

Recovery is almost done!

We're almost done with the recovery effort! Here are the washed lumber stacks in our Annex space. What you can't see (and hear) are the fans blowing and the dehumidifiers running. There's a relatively small stack remaining and I expect we'll be through it this weekend - weather permitting.

We're completely out of the flooded shop space. We moved the jade green Avonite solid surface material this afternoon with help from tons of volunteers. Several companies around here, including Aegon, have contributed their employees' time to help out flooded folk. Combined with incredible efforts from several of our good friends, we've blown through this many board-feet of lumber in just a few days.

The volunteers themselves are pretty amazing. One woman casually mentioned to one of our good friends that her hands hurt while washing boards. When my friend asked why, she said she had rheumatoid arthritis, and this wasn't a good day. When our friend expressed astonishment at our volunteer even offering to do physical work, she said that when she was diagnosed with RA she committed to herself that it never would affect her ability to do what she wanted and to contribute what she could.

Sara, John's youngest brother's sweetie, moved in with us this week to help out round the clock. She's another one who's amazing - she's out working every day in spite of crippling back pain.

Thank you, everyone!

Recovering John's shop: Days two and three

We've made tremendous progress so far. The troops - good friends of ours who spent most of the day with us - succeeded in clearing the bulk of the high-value hardwood from the shop up to our place. Other friends camped out with me washing tools and wood. We're washing the wood in dishwashing liquid; pressure-washing lumber can actually drive more dirt deeper into the wood because of wood's porous nature. After washing and rinsing we let the lumber drip dry for a few moments, and then stack it in our Annex. Each stack is loosely packed to allow air to move. We'll set up fans and a dehumidifier.

Our electric company faces tremendous challenges in restoring service to downtown Cedar Rapids and to John's shop's district. His shop building likely will not have power for at least six weeks. Because flood waters and silt breached wiring vaults underneath the downtown area, restoring power in downtown is even more of a challenge. Workers have not yet been able to enter many of the vaults because the vaults are completely packed with silt.

I've attached a video of our progress. We're keeping up our efforts tomorrow.

Shop recovery: Day One

We gained access to John's flood-damaged shop yesterday morning. This shot shows how water-logged plywood landed akimbo on the top of John's table saw, warping the cast iron frame. The saw - and much of the heavy equipment and fixtures throughout the shop - is a total loss.

Our first task was to dispose of water-logged plywood. Plywood absorbs water like a sponge and cannot be restored to usable form. I was astonished at how fast mold formed on most of the material.

John has an extraordinary collection of woods. He buys wood much like a oenophile buys and cellars wines. Our goal was - and is - to remove the high-value hardwood from the shop. Hardwood, unlike plywood, can be used if washed carefully and allowed to dry. We've cleared at least 800 square feet in our Annex building and outfitted it with fans and dehumidifiers. We'll be extracting hardwood and transporting it in John's van to the house. We're organizing volunteers to help this weekend - because the faster this happens, the better the wood retains its value.

Once the shop's cleared out, John's landlords (the Thorland Company) have already arranged to have the building cleaned, sanitized, and outfitted again for occupancy. They've been extraordinarily helpful to all their tenants. They've rebated rent since the flood began and will not charge rent until the spaces are fully rehabbed and ready. Bob Chadima, the spry octogenarian who heads up Thorland, visited each of us yesterday to assure us that they are doing everything humanly possible - and I have complete confidence in them to get things ready for us.

I've created a photo log of our progress at restoring the shop.

Here's a video of our work yesterday, and some shots of the flood-ravaged area. Particularly hard hit was our friend Morgan Karns's precision machine shop - awash in oil and sludge.

Flood status: Wednesday the 18th

Some nice National Guardsmen took John and me up to his building. That area is still off-limits today, but we expect to have access tomorrow.

Amazingly the building looks exactly like it always did, down to John's sign on the back of the building. The good news is that the building's doors and windows held together, so there should have been no river currents to destroy contents inside. Our best fantasy is that the water rose and fell without disturbing most things. Of course, wood floats, so who knows where stuff may have settled.

I've updated my photo gallery with more pictures, including a building with an undermined foundation, railway signals ripped out by water, and random fish left behind in the muck.

Flood status: Tuesday the 17th

The river's now down below flood stage and the city and National Guard folks are moving through whole neighborhoods marking residences as OK to enter or not. We're on the higher side of the river, and most of the houses I saw on our side this morning were marked as ready for cleanup.

Residences have higher priority than businesses, obviously, and we weren't able to get to John's shop today. I suspect - from the speed that folks are moving - that we will be in tomorrow. I'll post pictures just as soon as I have them.

Speaking of which, I've updated my flood picture gallery with today's shots. I've also sorted the images in reverse date order so you'll always see the newest pictures on top.

Follow the flood's depth here...

The National Weather Service has a link to their hydrologic prediction service page for the Cedar River at Cedar Rapids. You'll see that the Cedar crested here yesterday afternoon and that it has receded almost two feet from the peak since that time.

Flood status: Friday the 13th

We've been out walking and I've been shooting footage. Two major bits of news:

1. Mercy Medical Center evacuated last night because they lost their basement generator due to flooding. In my video you'll see the flooded area around the admissions entrance.
2. Cedar Rapids only has one of six wells pumping water right now. The city's on mandatory water restrictions. We've done two things to reduce our water use drastically. John installed rainwater collection for the garden last year. For obvious reasons, our reservoirs are full. We've been using this gray water for flushing toilets. We also just installed a new dehumidifier. With humidity levels high, we've been sucking more than two gallons a day that we use for dishwashing and general cleaning.

The water appears to be receding at this time: we just got back from our afternoon walk to check on things.

In the attached video you'll see us catching up with our old friends Meredith, Morgan, and Tracy Karns. Meredith introduced John and me back in 1995. He and his brother Morgan operate a printing company in the flooded-out building next to John's space.

Web gallery of flood pictures

Here's a link to a gallery of my flood pictures.

Flood status

Our house is well outside the flood area, and other than a brief power interruption this morning, all is well at the house. John's shop is now completely flooded. During the power outage, the two of us walked around and marveled at how high the water is and the extent of the affected area. I'll post pictures here and additional video as we have it.