Our thoughts are with you as the trouble moves downstream. In Ft. Atkinson, WI, we are still sandbagged, sweaty, looking for pumps and arguing with every city official within earshot. The Red Cross and a sprinkling of National Guard showed up today in town-finally.
We are with you,
Steve Stearns
Neighborman

Its about over 2 hrs and my Obama photos are still pending !!

I live in Wisconsin, and fortunately, not along a major waterway. My prayers go out to all my neighbors throughout Wisconsin and the upper mid-west for all they are going through.

My question: Who allowed these developers to fill in the watershed areas where the water is supposed to go during these floods? Who allowed the levees along the Mississippi and tributaries to be raised?

This only increases the amount of potential damage from unusual flooding, and puts more pressure along all of the levees that are being used to force these rivers to try to remain within these arbitrary man-made banks.

A flood plain is a flood plain is a flood plain, and we need to put the greedy land developers (and the government agenecies that okayed them) on the hot seat for allowing the development of the natural flood relief areas.

Thanks for the update. I lived in Burlington, IA for a short while and can really relate to the Mississippi River stories. Regarding the politics of all this, WE are "the greedy developers and government agencies". Its unfortunate that people only get up in arms and point fingers when the **** hits the fan and things go terribly wrong. If WE were more diligent in being involved in the day-to-day decision-making of our various governments WE might now be saying "Hey, nice work guys (civil servants, etc) on the flood control efforts and thanks for listening when I participated in that planning meeting about flood plain strategies."

I own a farm on the Iowa River. The media is acting like this will go away in a few days. In 1993, the river set it's all-time high on March 31st. Then set a new high in June, then set a 2nd all-time high in August. Every thunderstorm is another potential flood this summer. We could see it get worse next month, just like 1993, this is far from over.

A flood plain is a flood plain is a flood plain, and we need to put the greedy land developers
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tom
Addiction Recovery Connecticut