Mid-West H.A.M.B.ers Everyone OK??

I have been watching the news regarding the Scot Pack. I so hope your son is OK. Please let us know when you have time.

 

We were damn lucky...despite no sump pump, ****py soil pitch around the house and flat roof with virtually nonfunctional rain gutters, there were no floods in my ba*****t, thank God.

Fingers are crossed for the folks near the Mukwonago and Delafield threats!!

 

Batten down the hatches and stay safe, Kids.

Send some of that rain south. We could sure use some.

Good luck and God Bless.

Lux

 

We're still dry at our house, but we all helped sandbag the Sutliff Store last night. The east end of the historic bridge across the street from it was washed away late morning today. As of now the store is still dry.

 

Glad to hear your family is safe and dry. Sorry to hear about the bridge. There was a pic in the news and I wondered if it was the same bridge, I could not tell. I will keep the fingers crossed for ya.

 

we have been movin machery for 4 days and gettin ready to pull the house contents and decks at my uncles....talkin higher then 93! but there not gettin hammerd in iowa today [so far] so maybe itll crest lower! cant belive we are goin through a 500 year flood threat for the second time in 15 yrs! ill try and get some pics today if i get back to alexandria......

 

Rumor has it that the Jefferson Dam is about to breech... no Formal anouncement yet....but not good. The water is definatly higher now than in 93. The Highest I remember it was in the mid to late 80's and it @4" higher than that now..... the water was belly ****on deep at the seawall last night and rising @ 1 1/2" an hour. expected to crest 6/16/08. The river is at my ba*****t floor level and the sumps are keeping up(comoming up through the floor not the walls yet(limestone walls)). the river is also moving so fast... and eroding soooo much, sounds like a waterfall where it dgoes under the bridge. oh yeah did I mention it smells wonderfull?? The Madison WI wastewater treatment plant flooded out and is floating turds down the river......YUMMMM

 

Stay safe boys. Cars and houses can be replaced.

 

+gettiing worse every in here! the highway you all took to com into wayland from keokuk is under 20 ft of water,,,,and as of an hr ago, there gettin ready to bring in the gaurd, and force the town out!!! RECORD LEVELS! sorry for the **** typin, but im goij n on 5 day with 3=4 hrs sleep a night! i really cant grip this 500 yr flood ****, goin on , on the 15th yr ann/ of the last onew@ to bed i go!!

 

Well, I'm high and dry in town, But I can't get very far without plotting out a special route. I got to walk around a dry Lake Delton after it spilled. Dug some customer's boat motors out of the muck. Still planning on getting out of here and high-tailing it to the twin cities for Back to the Fifties next Wednesday. Hope everyone else is coming through all right.

 

about a week ago my house was struck by lightning and the power lines were ripped off the house, the lines were live for a few hours, showering sparks/fire/smoke all over the side of my house. I thought I was going to have to stand there and watch my house burn to the ground. we had to have most of the house rewired, as soon as we came back home the flooding started, we never got any water but the town was afraid the dike would not hold.

 

One headline said the water is going down? Hope so. I feel for you guys after last years flood out this way.

 

wellanother dam breeched here in WI . In Pardeeville But its on WI river chain Not the Rock. But still may have some reflux to the Iowans dealing with the Missy... heres some pics of mine

 

tons of roads blocked. had to go North for Carla's parents 50th. 3.5 hour trip took 6. We can't get from one side of town to the other in less than 30 minutes and that route means you drive through water. But, no deaths or major injuries, so we are fortunate. I must extend a warning to those folks along the mighty Mississippi. You are going to get blasted in a week. We haven't even crested on the Rock yet, the Wisconsin just dumped an entire lake in the the Miss. and those rivers in Iowa are unreal. Hang on, it is going to be worse than 1993. Best thing, head to St. Paul for Back to the 50's. See you there.

 

NOTE, THIS IS A PM I JUST SENT TO BIZMON, SO THATS WHY IS WORDED FUNKY!
AND TO ALL THAT WERE AT THE REVIVAL, THATS THE ROAD INTO IOWA,
DENISE, WERE YOU CAN SEE THE HIGHWAY AGAIN IN THE FIRST PIC , THATS RIGHT OFF THE BRIDGE ON THE MO SIDE, WHERE YOU TOOK YOUR MO SIGN PIC! IM STANDIN ON THE MIDDLE OF THE HIGHWAY IN ALEXANDRIA, AND THAT HIGHWAY YOU SEE, IS THE APPROCH TO THE BRIDGE INTO IOWA~! sorry bout the ****ty typin kids, im friggin beat the hell up! ohh, and sober, dammit!




the secondary levees broke, and its up to my driveway...but dont think itll get to bad here...but on the other side of the 'BIG levve were our lil town of alexandria is, its not lookin good!the gregory landin big levee brokie this morn which in turn gave alexandria a lil breathin room! but it will pop right back up tomm....should give way on weds, they way there talkin!
http://www.crh.noaa.gov/ahps2/hydrog...dvn&gage=eoki4
you can follow the height there!!!^^^
we only live 4 miles from alexandria, as it is now, itll be a foot higher then 93, and at my uncles, who lives on the big levee side, had 7.5 ft of water in his house! but weve been workin 15hrs a day to get all his **** out!

dont know if you can recall this, but as you went into iowa from the show, before you got to the des moines river bridge, there was a string of gas stations...well, you drive over the levee right at the very first gas station...behind that station is alexandria, the town i grew up in ...it was under 25 ft of water in 93! i think its gettin ready to be again! ****in sicknin!
anywho, as you drove over that levee on the highway [about a mile from the bridge] thats were i took this pic this morn!

thats the gas stations you drove by!
this one is lookin to the right from the same spot//..... my grampas house is 30 feet to the right of that tree!

my driveway beofre the gregory levee broke! its down a ways now, but that just for the moment!

back row of cars in my yard!!!


ohh, i dont have the pic loaded up yet, but to top all this ****in joy off, my only shed, was a 18x 21 car port, that i was goin to put sides and floor, yada yada, and store and work on my coupe in, was hit by a twister or str line winds yesterday when a ****in strom blew in, and blew it clear over a lil shed beside it, never hit ground for 60-70 feet, and rapped its self around 2 ****in tractors! this after a tree fell right through the kids swing set last week!
so, yeah, ive been gettin home at 9-10, and gettin drunk shorty there after! im beat the **** down bro! after all this ****in work, that ********in levee had better break or some corps of engineer ****ers are goin get beat to death with sandbags! is it just me, or would ya rather be smacked in the bag with a rubber hammer, then being to ****in tired to sleep????ugg! imma go find my hammer!
later dude, and if anything more "fun" happens, ill letcha know!
take care,
todd

 

same shot as the first one, 2 days ago!!!
heres where my car port was...where the ford tractor and mowers are.....

and heres where its at now!!!!
notice the muffler stickin out the tin!

hey anyone knows if FEMA is given out any car ports, pm me!!!!!hahaha!

 

I grew up in eastern Iowa. Was in the guard. Helped sandbag at Burlington a couple of times. Mom lives in Mt. Pleasant so shes safe. Little brother has a trailer on Skunk River. Has had to move it to high ground.
Hope all you eastern Iowa Hambers are high and dry. Still raining about everyday in Tulsa area.
___________________________________________________
Like I told the kid, "Your music not too loud, it just ****s!"

 

geeze, I had no idea you guys were going thru this.

My heart goes out to ya'll. I wish I was closer to help.

 

So, since the '58 and '59 would now be "flood salvage", they'll be available cheap, right? Strap 'em on to a barge and send it up river; I'll pick 'em up in Des Moines.

 

The shop is in Iowa City right? 41Willys in Coralville hasn't been on since 5/23, anybody know if he's OK? My brother-in-law, Allan, works with him, but he's in W. Virginia with the JayCees.

In '93 they worked the pumps at the U of I to keep the water from getting too high... kinda pointless if it's 2 feet deep on the second floor.

Nephew in law, who was here last week, works as a train engineer out of the quad cities, the trestle that the news guys have footage of collapsing, belongs to the co. he works for, he's gotta work in Chicago for the next few weeks.

All my GFs friends in CR are evacuated...

Hmmm, hurricanes, flooding and no snow, or tornadoes, flooding and LOTS of snow... I'm staying here.

 

HAMBer Side_Valve's business, The Hot Rod Company, is under water and much has been lost! Rotten flooding!!! Hang in there Mike.

Max

 

wow.!!! thats terrible news!!!!! hope all is well mike....

 

After reading all of this I am feeling lucky. I only had a tree fall on my house and wreck part of the roof. That does not seems like so much after reading this.

 

I had the opportunity to go up lastnight in one of our Dr's personal airplanes over Burlington, Gulfport, Kingston , and a few other places in IA I took as many pics as I could take , I am having them developed today, I will have to scan them in to my pc to be able to post them on here, and will do that as soon as I can. I have lived in this area all of my life, and remember the flood of 1993 well because it took my grandparents home. I have to say, that when we were up in the air last night about 6:00pm what I saw was NOTHING like what you see on the news. The absolute devastation from this all , and the HUGE ammounts of acres that are just gone and all I could see was dark muddy water where farms, and homes once were. I was told that when the levee broke in gulfport that it happened so quickly that the local farmers didnt have time to move the livestock , and litterally there are hundred of dead hogs and cattle floating in the river. We were too far up for me to see that ( thank God ) but I can tell you , seeing that first hand truly makes you appreciate what you have and makes your heart ache for those who have just lost it all in the undertow.

 

Tell us if there is anything we can do to get you up and running... like ordering with an open delivery date.

 

Well the Rock river finally crested today. here some video of the dam holding back the 3rd largest lake in WI. well its under there somewhere. The county came in and put up gravel and plastic levees that are currently holding it from breeching. it will be a slow recovery to normal height.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qm_OraS5Hc0&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6m8BxCk6t5o&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcjBwThjnXk&feature=related

 

well, it prolly washed the rat turds out the whole in the floor...so with the "detailing" , ill have to add a 100 bucks!
waters goin down here, but slowly! there lettin the alexandria community back in , so folks are movin home a lil at a time.....one of only a few levees here that didnt break! lucky!

 

So sad. I heard from my mother in Mt. Pleasant. She had lots of news. Sorry to hear about Gulfport, that where we used to go across the river and buy beer at 16-17-18. Had our girls buy the hard stuff, they would sell to underage girls with a Iowa ID. Weird, huh?
My uncle was with the Burlington Fire Dept for years and years. His name was Paul Messer if any of you "OLD" Hambers are out there.
I was in the Iowa Guard and helped sandbag at Burlington twice. Was in the 34th Div out of Fairfield.
_________________________________________________________
Like I told the kid "Your music not too loud,it just ****s!"

 

Here is an idea I think everyone should try at least a couple times in their lifetime--


I have taken the Red Cross training program so I can be a registered volunteer that can be sent to disaster areas to help out.

I had so much fun 4-wheeling around in the blizzard of 1978 (79?) bringing people in from stuck Greyhound busses, trucks, and cars on the interstate, running them to makeshift shelters in the local schools, then 4-wheeling groceries and medicine to the snowed-in nursing homes. FREE GAS and all the 4-wheeling I wanted. What could be more fun than that?

Then the 1993 flood was a whole summer of fun with sandbagging, evacuations, and adventure. A TV station (from Louisville ky? cant remember) captured my Cad 472 powered Hawk pulling a trailer piled high with sandbags that many said it couldn't pull. They asked me to drive by the cameras three times for some good shots. Making sandbag walls around homes that were about to go under... sandbagging on levees .... making a wall down the middle of a highway in Dutchtown... lots of fun.

What I want to tell people is that the two-evening training is easy. The work is so much fun it can get to be habit forming, and you can have as much, or as little, adventure as you want.
You can turn down ***ignments if you can't make it at the time, or you can have great adventures when you are able to spare the time to do it.

Contact the Red Cross and tell them you want to get ready to work on the next great adventure.
If you've never tried it, it's a whole lot more fun than you think.