A flood's ripple effect
IT'S EASY to forget the destructive power of water, until it swallows cars, homes, movie theaters, and hundreds of city blocks, as flood waters have in the Midwest. Long after the dark waters recede, they will have left their mark on the entire nation.
For days, Iowa has been inundated by water that has driven tens of thousands of people out of their homes. Iowans have responded with sand bags and good will - the same spirit that has gotten the state through blizzards as well as the river-breaching flood of 1993.
Still, there is heartbreak. Photographs from the Des Moines Register show a Cedar Rapids man walking through chest-high water as he enters the front door of his home. Inside furniture is floating, and the kitchen counters are underwater. One woman wept when police told her that she should evacuate her home. Others objected in anguish when police refused to let them return to flooded homes that were deemed unsafe.
The devastation is confined to the Midwest, but its tremors reach outward. Transportation has been crippled. Roads are closed. Rail lines have been washed out in Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Missouri, and Illinois, causing Amtrak to suspend train service. Freight trains have been stalled. On the Mississippi River, barges and tugboats have been docked. The Iowa Farm Bureau estimates that water has flooded nearly 1.3 million corn acres and up to 2 million acres of soybeans. And Iowa's governor, Chet Culver, is worried that the state's agricultural industry will sustain a $1 billion loss. For the rest of the country, that will almost certainly translate into higher food prices.
We will rebuild, officials say - as they must, because this is the best and only choice after a disaster. Unspoken is a bracing fact: People can rebuild, and they may learn a great deal from doing so. But when it comes to a sense of well being, they will never be the same.
