Flood of 2013?

How ironic that as we near the 5 year anniversary of the 2008 flood, the Cedar river is once again rising.

It's not expected to reach the record high level of 31 feet--the height of the river in 2008.

(Awesome picture of the 2008 flood from boston.com)

The predicted crest is 19.9, which is 7 feet above flood level, still far below 2008's crest.

Plus, this time, the city knows what to do.

I was in the New Bo neighborhood yesterday.  It's right across the river from Czech town, around the intersection of 12th Ave. SE and 3rd St. SE.  As we sat in Brewed Cafe, we watched the activity--trucks going by with sand, sandbags being filled over by the market, and, inside the Cafe, boxes being brought up from the basement and moved to the 2nd floor.

 This last picture, below, is a concrete cylinder and sandbags placed over a storm sewer.  We saw that all over New Bo.  They're making sure the water doesn't come OUT of the storm sewers into the neighborhood.

New Bo should be OK if the flood really does crest at 19.9 feet.  But, of course, it might go higher, depending on rain here and upstream.

How do I know this?  Well, I've been fiddling around with the Iowa Flood Center's website, which shows where flooding will occur at different river stages. I wrote a story about it for the Gazette a couple years ago. Here's what it looks like:

If you want to visit the site, you can find it at http://ifis.iowafloodcenter.org/ifis/main/?m=Cedar_Rapids

If you visit the site, you can move the little "Flood Map Controller" lever (on the right side) to match the expected crest and see where flooding will happen.  Move it up to 31 feet and see what we got in 2008  . . .

Anyway, Robbie and I were curious about what things looked like, so we rode our bikes down across the river.  The water was way up on the bridges, as you can see from this picture a friend posted on Facebook.  It was at about 17 feet, according to a marker on the side of one of the bridges, still 2.9 feet short of its future crest.

Then we rode out along 1st Street NW.  There's a bike trail that goes along the top of the levee, with great views of the river.  The levee was doing its job--no water in that area!  But it only goes to Penn Street, and after that, well . . . the river was moving in.

Down by the waterski bleachers, which were flooded, the road was closed, and so was the bike trail.

On the way back, I noticed that the river is higher than the road--the levee is doing its job.

The crest is supposed to be on Saturday evening.  Things are pretty dry now--in Cedar Rapids and upstream.  Maybe 19.9 feet will be our final flood stage.