I swear I didn't do it

They say that when you wash your car it is bound to rain?  Well, yes, I did wash my car and yes it did rain, but I swear I didn't do this!

At some point during yesterday or last night a giant sink hole opened up immediately down the hill (to the west) of our house and took part of the bicycle path with it.  The photos do not do it justice.  The drop from the pavement to below is over 20 feet.  In this photo, you can see that most of the pavement settled part way down the slope where there is a normally small stream.

I had to be a little daring to get myself close enough to the edge to show you just how far into the hillside the water gouged away.  Everyone was telling me not to get too close, but my camera phone doesn't really have a zoom.  So I lived a little dangerously for a couple seconds. Jeesh!

This is the normally trickle of a stream.  You can see where the pavement landed as the sink hole slid down the slope (bottom left of photo) and to the stream which was rushing along while we stood there.  The stream is another 10 feet down from where the mud and pavement came to a stop.  If you saw this in person, you would realize how really incredible it is.  Our neighbor said it looked like a meteor hit the bike path.  It easily swallowed up around 70 feet.

This is a photo taken from the highway (camera pointed south towards the South Skunk River) of the Rose family farm.  Ol'e Charlie isn't going to get much of a harvest out of that part of the field.  The water you see in the photo stretches for at least an 8th of a mile.

This is a shot of the Skunk River bridge on the highway that runs north out of Mitchellville.  Normally this is the road we take to get onto I-80 to get into Des Moines.  You can see from this shot that the water is to the bottom of the structure of the bridge.  The current was so fast that it took a log and pulled it under a whirlpool while we were standing there ... and it never came back up.  So - no tubing boys and girls - unless you want to be like the log.  Seriously, people need to STAY OUT of the flood water.  There are farm chemicals, sewage and who knows what else in it - it stinks like swamp gas - and it is a good way to get really sick or drown.  A fast ride on an inner-tube is not worth your life.

This is a photo of the South Skunk River itself (heading E-SE) around 10 miles from Colfax, Iowa, off of the Skunk River bridge.  You can see my shadow in the water.  The trees that you see on the left side of the photo - normally you can not only see all of the trunk, but an earthen levee as well.  Not today though.

You can see here (the NE side of the bridge) that the water completely spilled over the top of the levee and is so full that the branches (which on a regular summer day would be about 10 feet or so above the water line) are weighed down by the water.

This shot was taken on the west side of the bridge (you can see that the highway is called NE 112 Ave).  This photo does a great job of illustrating just how close to the top of the bridge the water really is.

This is a shot (pointed west) of the river.  On normal summer days, there would be sand bars.  Today there were whirlpools, debris, and water that moved so fast that if you put a boat on it, you could be downstream a mile before you got your motor started.

If you look in the upper left of the photo, you can see one of our neighbors checking out the large tree that is pinned against one of the pillars of the bridge.

I took this shot looking straight down into the water as it was rushing under the bridge.  This is exactly why people need to be aware of flood water.  The suction power of the water rushing into a tiny space under the bridge is VERY strong.  The water was roiling so much that it reminded me of a spillway below a dam.

This is a side-angle shot of another area where the water was rushing through a very narrow area under the bridge.  You can't tell how high the waves are from the photo, but standing over it - not only was I worried I would drop my phone into the river, but I could feel the vibration of the water beneath my feet.

This field is just to the north of the bridge (looking SW).  This water completely covers a bean field and reaches from the Mitchellville road (NE 112 Ave) to 65/330 just to the north of Bondurant.  We couldn't get to it, but the ghost town of Santiago is very near this, and I would guess that those whose homes are in the lower areas are flooded.

Unfortunately, the same farmer owns this field too. (This is north of the bridge looking to the east).

We didn't technically break any laws, but we did go around a ROAD CLOSED barricade in order to drive north towards Mitchellville to see the flood damage.  This is where the two fields in the previous pictures combined by overflowing the deep ditches and covering the roadway.  The darker blue colored water over the road surface was moving very fast.  You can see that the farmer who owns the land probably has water up to his house (in the photo - white colored building).  I have never seen water over this road before because the ditches were dug out to make this sort of thing nearly impossible from happening just a few years ago.

At first, this might appear to just be a bunch of grass floating in shallow water.  It isn't.  It is a crawdad or crayfish - however you name them in your neck of the woods - walking along the surface of the road that is under water.  I have never seen a crawdad anywhere near a road in my entire life until today.

Here you can see where the water meets the road - not the tires. lol  That yellow stripe is going to help nobody anytime soon.  (The shot was taken facing to the south - towards Mitchellville).

I learned something today that I had never thought of.  Spiders who live in corn and bean fields - they don't like water.  This is a shot of a really big one trying to get to dry land.  I have arachnophobia, and while I was taking photos I didn't notice much else except the water until the neighbor gal that was with me started screaming that there were spiders everywhere, running all over the dry roadway to get away from the water.  I kept my cool, but walked very fast because I then noticed HUNDREDS of spiders of all sizes within a few feet of my feet - and that's not cool ANYTIME!

Meet my little flood friend.  THIS is a crawdad.  I did a crappy job of photographing it (and I held it upside down) but I did get a good shot of his little snippy claws....and then...

This is me showing Denise the crawdad after she locked me out of the car because she was worried that I had a snake in my hand.  See, he's waving at her.  I don't think she was too impressed.  I put him back by the water so he can eat all those spiders.

This shot is taken facing west just east of 330/65 - the diagonal that runs from Altoona to Marshalltown.  There was water as far as the eye could see ... and you can't tell it from this photo, but the other lanes of the highway (a 4-lane) were covered with water as well, making driving south into Bondurant impossible.

Hmm, I know there is a highway here somewhere...

This is in a nature area near NE 112 Ave (Mitchellville Road) that the DNR takes care of.  They were trying to restore 'wetlands'...well it worked.  It is wet.

A very common site this week...gravel roads all around Valeria and Colfax under water.  Normally you could take this road to Oswalt (an old coal mining town).  Today you'd need a boat.

I think it would really stink if your train was stuck on the tracks...

What am I saying?  It REALLY sucks when your train is stuck on the tracks!!!

I know the photo is blurry.  Like I said, a camera phone doesn't really take good photos, especially if you are moving even the tiniest bit.  We pulled up in front of this home and found the residents and others carrying out family photos and any other salvageable items that they could.  They were nearly chest-high in water carrying it out to pickup trucks on the highway.  This farm house sits just west of Colfax on Old Hwy 6.

This home in Colfax is on the west edge of town. The sparkles you see?  That is reflection from the sun on the water.  You can't see the foundation because the water is so high.

The picture does not do true justice to what can be seen in person at this location on the west outskirts of Colfax.  The van and the white truck are both surrounded and partially covered in water.  The house is surrounded as well.

This is the house right next door to the one above.  That car in the photo is an older Camaro and the water is up to the middle of the doors.  Those who live on the west side of Colfax in the flood zone have been evacuated to the High School if they cannot get in and out of their houses.  In the areas where the water has receded - everyone has generators running pumps to get feet of water out of their basements.  You read that right - FEET.

I will, of course, keep updating you on the situation.

And I don't have to wash my car because tomorrow (well today since it is now 3:15 a.m.) the entire state of Iowa is under a severe weather watch - all 99 counties.  And what rain falls north of us will soon swamp us out even more.

If you would like to help those in Iowa who are experiencing flooding, please click here or email me directly.