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Iowa Bed & Breakfast Guild

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(Newest updates at the bottom of the page...)

Sunday Morning, 6/15/08 Update:

Last night, courtesy of an old friend who's staying at the hotel (one of the few!), we were able to get a private tour of the Coralville Dam.  This entire area is closed to public access due to the flood, but our friend works for the Army Corps of Engineers and was able to get us into the restricted areas.

The still photos are interesting, but you really have to view the video to understand the gravity of the situation.  Watching 40,000 cubic feet per second go over that dam, thundering down river toward Iowa City, truly clarified why we are in such a mess.

As for us, we're now effectively an island, with the river running over Riverside Drive to our North and South.  With the road closed out front of the hotel, Interstates 80 and 380 closed, Hwy 218 to the South closed, and over 30 streets in Iowa City/Coralville under water, no one is coming to Iowa City -- we're now nearly out of business.  

All of the businesses around us are padlocked and closed, behind sand-bags.  As long as we're dry we can't do that, with our long-term corporate guests -- so we're just trying to keep our employees busy doing odd jobs.   That should keep everyone going for a few more days... 

Right now they're saying this event could last weeks, not days.

Click here to watch a video of the dam overflowing...

 

Sunday Afternoon, 6/15/08 -- Aerial Photos

We drove down to Washington, IA, to fetch our plane for an "over-the-flood" flight.   For an hour we flew over some of the most devastated areas of Iowa.  Here are some of the amazing pictures of a city that's under water....

Iowa City Airport	Another shot of the flooding near the airport	Our hotel, flooding all around -- but we're dry!	Another shot of the Alexis...
City Park under water...	The Coralville Strip is devasted...	Coralville Dam, spillway in full dump	Iowa City's downtown area
Iowa City downtown	The Coralville Marriott, surrounded	The Marriott is supposedly still open	Another shot of the Marriott...
The Mayflower Dormitory, completely surrounded	Riverside Casino	Another shot of the casino, 18 miles south of Iowa City	Rapids below the dam
Coralville Strip, devastated...	The dam face	Another shot of the dam face	And another
And another!	The spillway is wide open	Spillway is wide open	I-80 -- 1/4 mile of the road under the Cedar River
America's Main Street is closed...	Iowa is cut in half, with I-80 closed	Keith is ready for the flood!

Monday, 6/16/08

I-80 reopened this afternoon!  Iowa City is no longer cut off from the East.  Otherwise, the situation is unchanged from Sunday.

Tuesday, 6/17/08

I-380 reopened this morning!   We're not cut off from Cedar Rapids anymore!  The situation in Iowa City is unchanged, but the water is now visibly dropping.  The strip mall up at the corner is coming back to life, too!  We're not the "Lone Ranger" out here anymore...