Drake University: Interview with Lucca Soria

1. What are the reasons for the excessive flooding that take place on campus?

It probably has something to do with the slope of the land and the large amount of concrete waiting to collect the excess water.

2. How do these problems affect students but specifically how do they affect you?

It messes with their commute to class if the flooding is in a parking lot or something, but like I said, I don't experience it much.

3. What solutions do you have to fix this flooding problem around Drake?

You could relocate all the parking lots to the highest parts of campus and replace them with plants and vegetation that helps the excess water or follow what Drake has already started doing and direct the water to storm drains.  

Chapter 2 Review

Book Review: A Watershed Year Anatomy of the Iowa Floods of 2008 Edited by Cornelia F. Mutel

2. Why Were the 2008 Floods So Large? by Witold F. Krajewski and Ricardo Mantilla

What were the main reasons that caused perhaps the worst flood in the history of Iowa? This is a question that this chapter seeks to answer. With over 1.2 million acres of agricultural land damage, an answer to why this flood occurred needed to be answered so the severity of future floods can be prevented. Rather than one main factor causing the flood, it is believed that three factors led to this devastating event in 2008.

These factors included the severe winter that preceded the flood, the intense rainstorms of late May and early June and the possibility of  a perfect storm. The severe winter can be blamed due to the excessive snow which melted and left the ground wet for months and left the ground unable to allow vegetation to dry the soil. The record breaking rain falls that came in May and June only wet the ground more and added to the problem of it not being able to produce crops effectively. 

Finally, a perfect storm was seen as a factor to explain the 2008 floods' intensity. The timing and location of the rain maximized flood intensity. With the ground already being saturated with water, the new rainfall flowed into the nearest drainage channel. In all. the water that was saturated in the ground created a massive water traffic jam which resulted in the rising of rivers. With the rivers being overfilled, the only way that the water could be released was onto the land.

Chapter 1 Review

Book Review: A Watershed Year Anatomy of the Iowa Floods of 2008 Edited by Cornelia F. Mutel

1.What Causes Floods in Iowa? by A. Allen Bradley, Jr.

A flood happens when a rivers water capacity is less than the amount of water in the river. This is usually the result of heavy rain fall and ice and snow melting. Flooding occurs regularly, but large floods like the ones in 1993 and 2008 happen less frequently. Floods like those cause large amounts ecological damage to the affected areas.

 In Iowa 90% of floods happen from March to August.Iowa's largest floods have happened in the months of June and July. Flooding rarely happen in the fall and winter months.  Thunderstorms can create floods, but they usually don't create enough rain. Only a stalled front can produce enough rain to cause flooding. In 1993 and 2008 one in five rivers experienced flooding. Both times the state had a wet spring and winter. The 1993 flood was a summer long event. All the summer months had heavy  rainfall totals. The 2008 flood was much more short lived.  The 2008 flood had the wettest winter in 114 years.

The flood of 1993 affected a larger area than the one in 2008, the states of Illinois, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, South Dakota, and Wisconsin were in its radius. The 2008 flood mainly affected the states of Iowa and Wisconsin. Other states were hit, but it was nowhere near as widespread as 1993. Floods are uncontrollable, and they can hit at any time. We can't control when flooding will occur, but we can be more prepared for it.

Just for giggles!

If there was a flood! Would you get flooded????

Well if you wanna know.......click this link!!!

http://floodmap.net/

Two of Two

About me:

My name is Akeem Campbell, and I am currently a senior at Drake University. I major in Health Science with a minor in business, but I am generally interested in all fields of study. This will be my first time blogging, but I am looking forward to not only sharing information but gaining knowledge from others.
    
Ironically, my first experience coming to Drake was affected by flooding. What is usually a 5 hour drive from Chicago to Des Moines quickly became a 7 hour drive due to an intensive flood which forced us to take a detour. It wasn't until a few years later that I began looking more into this event and realizing this event would become known as the Midwest flood of 2008. 
    
This experience as well as being in an Environmental History class had led me to further investigate this flood. Along with the 2008 flood, the 1993 flood will be also investigated. I will draw parallels between these two events and also find out how they affected the Midwest. Specifically, the effect of these floods on socioeconomics and pollution will be discussed. For this research I am looking forward to in-person interviews and being able to share this information with other. 

Photo by: Mirza Muhamedagic

I took this picture a few months ago outside of a bar I work at. This was after a very short period of intense rain.

Response:

The picture above was taken a few months ago in West Glenn. West Glenn is a “New Urban Development” project in West Des Moines, Iowa. The idea behind New Urbanism is to create a mini-city with in a city, so basically you can get all your goods in the area you live in. This seems to be a great idea, and in most cases it is, at least in my opinion, but there are also some issues. There are usually a lot of businesses in the area, and even more housing, so if the area floods you have a large amount of damage that affects a large amount of people.So it's probably smart to not build these areas in flood plains!!

West Glenn is in the Iowa flood plain, so if there is a flood the area would most likely see flood damage. What worries me is that the picture I took was just after a few hours of rain. What would happen after a long period of rain? Would we have “Lake West Glenn", or would everything be okay?

One of Two

About me:

My name is Mirza Muhamedagic, and I am a senior at Drake University. I mainly study history, but I am also interested in law and sociology. Writing a blog is something I have done before, but never for something like this. I'm excited to see what type of information we can find because the study of floods seems to be very interesting.

I am from Des Moines, and was around for the Flood of 2008. That experience was very surreal because it seemed like everything was being dictated by the water. For example, I had to take an alternate way to school because one of the roads, NW 62nd Ave., was flooded. This road was built by Beaver Creek, which has had a history of flooding.

Floods don't really scare me because I'm still young, and have only dealt with one. However, I do know that they are dangerous and cause millions of dollars in damage, kill many people, and have the ability to destroy whole cities.

  

WELCOME:

Goal of Blog:

We are writing this blog for a school project. The blogs content will deal with the Iowa Flood of 1993 and 2008. We will be drawing information from and analyzing newspapers, government websites, books, and scholarly journals. There will also, hopefully, be some interviews with experts on flooding, and on other matters related to flooding. We are still gathering sources, so do not expect a post until sometime next week.

Thank You