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Running Iowa tornado/flood thread

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by NX, May 26, 2008.

  1. Slash

    Slash Member

    Re: Tornado-ravaged Iowa community needs SANDBAGS (area now dealing with floodin

    I was born and raised in Iowa. My heart aches for them. I was there during the Flood of 93. It sounds like this could be as bad. The latest tornado was just another punch in the gutt. Just when it looked like it couldn’t get any worse, four kids are killed. Iowans are strong, hearty folks. They will bounce back. They always do, and they will do it together — neighbor helping neighbor.

    My thoughts and prayers are with them all. For those of you in the Hawkeye State (pains me to call it that being a Cyclone fan ;D) take care and God Bless.
     
  2. Simon_Cowbell

    Simon_Cowbell Active Member

    Re: Tornado-ravaged Iowa community needs SANDBAGS (area now dealing with floodin

    The kids were in a subterranean shelter?

    If so.... damn, that's incredible. If it was above ground, its decimation would be no surprise.

    My heart goes out to you.
     
  3. Armchair_QB

    Armchair_QB Well-Known Member

    Re: Tornado-ravaged Iowa community needs SANDBAGS (area now dealing with flooding)

    The story I read seemed to indicate it was above ground. But I may have been reading about a different group of kids.
     
  4. JBHawkEye

    JBHawkEye Well-Known Member

    Re: Tornado-ravaged Iowa community needs SANDBAGS (area now dealing with flooding)

    Back to the flooding, if you were planning to take I-80 across Iowa this weekend, take another route. I think this is going to be the first of many closures.

    http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080612/NEWS/80612011
     
  5. Armchair_QB

    Armchair_QB Well-Known Member

    Re: Tornado-ravaged Iowa community needs SANDBAGS (area now dealing with flooding)

    They'll have to shut down I-35 south of DM if the Raccoon River continues to rise. Same thing happened in 93.
     
  6. Slash

    Slash Member

    Re: Tornado-ravaged Iowa community needs SANDBAGS (area now dealing with floodin

    Talked to a friend of mine, whose wife works at the Waterloo Courier. They had to evacuate their downtown office yesterday and put the paper out from a local JuCo. Shes a copy editor and normally goes to work at 6 a.m. to put out the PM daily. She was at the JuCo at 2 a.m. last night. That’s gotta stink. That’s called dedication to get the job done.
     
  7. JBHawkEye

    JBHawkEye Well-Known Member

    Re: Tornado-ravaged Iowa community needs SANDBAGS (area now dealing with flooding)

    One of the railroads that cut through Cedar Rapids put railcars on its bridge over the Cedar River to keep it from being washed away.

    The bridge is gone this morning, and the railcars are in the river.
     
  8. NX

    NX Member

    Re: Tornado-ravaged Iowa community needs SANDBAGS (area now dealing with floodin

    In the interest of some disclosure, I work for a chain of weeklies. The Eagle Grove paper is in that chain. It always hits home a little more when there's some kind of connection.

    By TIMBERLY ROSS
    Associated Press
    BLENCOE, Iowa (AP) — A boy from Eagle Grove was one of four killed at the Little Sioux Ranch Wednesday, when a twister hit a Boy Scout camp.

    The Department of Homeland Security said Aaron Eilerts, 14, died when the tornado hit the Little Sioux Scout Ranch in the Loess Hills, in Monona County.

    The other Scouts who died were from Omaha, Neb. They were Ben Petrzilka, 14; Sam Thomsen, 13; and Josh Fennen, 13.

    No Boy Scouts from North Iowa's Winnebago Boy Scout Council, which includes Mason City, were attending the camp, said council officials on Thursday.

    Frightened scouts huddled in a shelter as a tornado tore through their western Iowa campground, killing four boys and injuring 48 other scouts and staff who just a day earlier had gone through an emergency preparedness drill.

    Amid rain and lightning, rescue workers cut their way through downed branches and dug through debris Wednesday to reach the camp where the 93 boys, ages 13 to 18, and 25 staff members were attending a weeklong leadership training camp.

    At least 42 of the injured remained hospitalized Thursday morning, with everything from cuts and bruises to major head trauma, said Gene Meyer, Iowa's public safety commissioner. At least four of the injured had been airlifted from the camp, but Meyer refused to elaborate on their conditions.

    The boys were split in two groups when the storm hit — one batch managed to take shelter, while the other group was out hiking.

    “Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims and the families of the victims,'' said Gov. Chet Culver. ``We continue to do everything we can to make sure those injured are going to recover.”

    All the scouts and staff were accounted for, Meyer said, adding that searchers were making another pass through the grounds to make sure no one else was injured. The camp was destroyed.

    “We need daylight to help us complete that search and rescue mission,” said Monona County Sheriff Jeff Pratt.

    A Boy Scout official familiar with the camp said the grounds had no safe storm shelters.

    “Absolutely not,” said Lloyd Roitstein, an executive with the Mid-America Council of the Boy Scouts of America. The council oversees scout operations in parts of Iowa, Nebraska and South Dakota.

    “There’s no building that could stand the force of that tornado,” he said, adding that the camp is a place where scouts “rough it.”

    Roitstein said scouts had a weather radio, were aware storms were coming, and prepared for it the best they could under the circumstances. He said a tornado siren was sounded, but scouts had taken cover before it went off.

    Tales of heroism were emerging from the disaster. Roitstein says a group of scouts pulled the camp ranger and his family from their destroyed home at the camp. Elsewhere, another scout ducked under a table in a building as the twister bore down and helped cover another boy.

    “They did everything they were taught to do,” Roitstein said.

    Thomas White, a scout supervisor, said he dug through the wreckage of a collapsed fireplace to reach victims in a building where many scouts sought shelter.

    “A bunch of us got together and started undoing the rubble from the fireplace and stuff and waiting for the first responders,” White told KMTV in Omaha, Neb. ``They were under the tables and stuff and on their knees, but they had no chance.''
     
  9. Armchair_QB

    Armchair_QB Well-Known Member

    Re: Tornado-ravaged Iowa community needs SANDBAGS (area now dealing with flooding)

    That seems like an incredibly dumb idea even if the bridge wasn't washed away.
     
  10. Slash

    Slash Member

    Re: Tornado-ravaged Iowa community needs SANDBAGS (area now dealing with flooding)

    This stuff is tough to read. I can’t imagine how scared they were. They’re all heroes in my book.
     
  11. JBHawkEye

    JBHawkEye Well-Known Member

    Re: Tornado-ravaged Iowa community needs SANDBAGS (area now dealing with flooding)

    There was a story yesterday in one of the papers (can't find a link) that had one of the railroad guys saying that there was a risk in doing this. He was right.

    Back in 1993, the railroads here did it over the major bridges over the Mississippi. And a few weeks ago, when a barge broke loose in the high waters and smacked the railroad bridge here, the railroad put railcars out where the barge was stuck to keep the bridge weighed down.
     
  12. D-3 Fan

    D-3 Fan Well-Known Member

    Re: Tornado-ravaged Iowa community needs SANDBAGS (area now dealing with floodin

    My uncle told me the same thing that the staff went had to wade thru the water to get to the Courier and then evacuated to Hawkeye CC after Mayor Hurley ordered total evacuation. The CR Gazette is printing up the Courier's edition and driving them up to the Target Distribution center in Cedar Falls.

    The Courier has never had a busy two months like this in its history (Parkersburg and now the Cedar River flooding)

    Speaking as in railroad bridges crumbling, CR is the second one. Waterloo lost theirs on Tuesday, albeit they didn't put any train on it to buffer the river. Don't know why CR officials went with that tactic.
     
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