Below this sign....

I see this sign every time I drive on the interstate going north in my town. Every time I see this sign, it sends chills down my spine. You see, I live in one of the cities in Iowa that was devastated by the floods last June. It was historical flooding, like nothing this city has ever seen before. The flooding went past the 500-year flood plain. I could not take my eyes off of the TV for more than 5 minutes...watching in disbelief as the local news channel showed more and more of my city under water. A building I had just been in the day before...now had feet of water in the main floor.

Fortunately for me, neither my home or my work were directly affected by the flood. We lost power in our home for one day for a total of about 6-8 hours. I learned how to run our generator that day since my husband was out of town working! But thanks to that generator, I was not running back and forth from my basement to my front door bailing water out of the sump pit, 5 gallons at a time like my much more unfortunate neighbor.

Since the only way to get across town was now to drive on the interstate that now hosts the sign in the picture above, traffic was a nightmare. I called my uncle who had recently moved back to Iowa from San Francisco and told him I know have a small idea of what it was like to live in SF!

The wonderful company I work for was awesome in so many ways, by donating money to a flood recovery fund, helping out their employees who were directly affected by the flood, and by allowing anyone to take 1 day off a month, paid, to go help flood victims in our area. A group of people I work with took a day off of work to help a family owned plumbing company clean out their storage sheds. It was hard, hot, sometimes disgusting work, but we stuck it out all day long and made a lot of progress.

Yes indeed, a great city is rebuilding below that sign and many other places in Iowa.

If you would like to help, please visit http://saveiowa.org/.