Things have turned pretty serious.
It's amazing how quickly things can change. Tuesday the crest (highest water level) at the Iowa River was supposed to reach 31.5 feet. Wednesday morning, they updated it to 32.5 feet. Another foot is significant. On top of that, there was quite a bit of rain Wednesday and severe storms are heading in overnight. The river isn't scheduled to crest until Monday evening and these additional rains will not help - at all. That's five days for the river to potentially to rise even more and too many days of that much pressure on the levees.
My parents and the entire area they live in are evacuating. My mom has taken the rest of the week off work to move out. My dad and brother spent Wednesday afternoon moving the tractors and other farm equipment to higher ground. Dad also sold all of the remaining grain in the bins to get it out in case something would happen. Knowing my dad, doing all of that tells me he's taking this extremely seriously. My parents rented a semi-trailer and it's coming Thursday morning so they can load it with everything in the house. My sister and Adrian will stay with my gramma. Mom and Dad will stay at the house as long as they can.
Dad doesn't know how the levee can hold. It's looking more likely that it could break. I was mistaken in my other email. Even if the river overflows the levee, my parents will be affected. The overflow will cause a washout, breaking the levee. In addition, my parents live in a corner where two levees come together. They are at the far end and all of the water will drain towards them. If the Iowa River levee does break, there is a possibility the Corps of Engineers will purposely break the Mississippi River levee near our farm. This will help drain the farmland and take pressure off additional levees. Of course, if this happens, our farm will be completely destroyed by the sheer force of water rushing in.
It's heartbreaking, on many levels. My grandparents bought this land nearly 70 years ago and built the house my parents now live in. Four generations of Stollers have lived in this house. That's a lot of us! :) Obviously, there's many memories there and it's still the family farm to my grandmother, uncles, and cousins. Fortunately, homes can be rebuilt. The other big scare is the crops. Dad only farms about 250 acres, which is not much, but it does provide quite a bit of income for them. Farming is already not good with all of the high prices and losing an entire crop would be nearly crippling. I can't imagine what my dad is feeling. His entire house, farm, and livelihood is at stake in the coming days.
Of course, there's plenty to pray for. We know God can do all kinds of things with water. He created it, flooded the earth with it, parted the Red Sea and calmed the water with Jesus. He absolutely has the ability to hold the levees and by faith, I'm hopeful He protects the land and people I love so much. Pray for my parents as they go through this huge undertaking. Pray for peace for me, too. I'm still in Alaska and am not returning to Dallas until Monday night. I desperately want to be there to help out and endure this with my family, and feel completely useless spending time in a coffeeshop reading. However, prayer is powerful, and that's all I can do!
Thanks again for praying!
Stephanie
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