My homeland...an island in the sea

It has been a strange couple of days. While I generally try not to mention on here where I am from, one can probably figure out a general location from the information I provide or from the links from other blogs. Right now my home state and home town are in the news for some very bad things.

This is the town I live in. This is my downtown only 3-4 miles from where I live and a mile from where I work.

The devastation to our town is bad, but not even as bad as the towns 20 miles north, east and west. Right before the flooding, tornados went through both of those areas. If the twister didn't get them, the flooding certainly did.

Until today, my little town was an island. We were completely surrounded by water and had no way out. The Coast Guard was called into rescue people--just so you know, I live deep in the mid-west. Right smack in the middle of the country and the Coast Guard arrives. All the roads, highways and interstates to the north, south, east and west were out. Today the highway north opened, but the road crews were out trying to repair the south bound highway lanes that were literally washed away. The hospital to our east had to evacuate and close the hospital doors indefinitely. The hospital was immersed in water--the entire ground floor and five inches of the second floor. The pharmacy, the IT, the ED and many other departments--gone. The levees are breaking and today, one of the bridges over one of the highways collapsed.

And as I sit here and write, the hellacious storms have begun again. We have heavy thunder, lightening and rain.

I had the chance to drive north today and I was blown away by the damage. I grew up in a flood plane and we were in tornado alley, but this was unexpected. Any crops that had recently been planted, were washed away. Huge lakes formed where corn and soybeans had grown. The floods took out trees and the highways were littered with debris. I noticed that many of the houses had already pulled their wet carpets and tossed them in the yard.

Please pray for our little towns. The President has declared a state of emergency/disaster in nearly 1/3 of the state's counties. Thankfully, despite all the flooding and tornados, no one has been killed.