Water, water everywhere.

Historically, spring hasn’t been kind to my basement. Last year, I had six inches of water and had to call in Surrogate Dad to reroute my sump pump. I lost “valuables” like my mother’s circa 1970 Kenmore sewing machine. (Doesn’t seem like much of a loss, but dude, it was green. And she had just found the instruction book.)

This year, Mr. Wonderful helped me reroute the exterior piping for the sump pump. We’ve had some hellacious storms and I have some minor water in the basement, but it’s all very manageable. Really, when you have a cinder-block foundation, what are you supposed to expect?

The wet spring weather has not been so kind to my people. I just saw footage of the flooding in Iowa and I must say … I am simply aghast.

People in Cedar Rapids, Waterloo, Iowa City and Des Moines are being evacuated and seeing their homes, businesses and schools fill with muddy, sloshy yuck. These are not people who live on the river or on a swamp. The water is impacting people who even came through the flood of ’93 unscathed. The disbelief on their faces is painful to see.

In the summer of ’93, I had just graduated from high school. The high water levels weren’t an active concern in my self-absorbed, post-graduation brain. However … the water rose to such levels that there was basically one road out of town. Getting around the state was impossible. And then entire city of Des Moines lost its water supply.

I have photos of the standing water in my parents’ front yard. Back before disposable or digital cameras, we took rolls and rolls of “real” film because we figured that we’d never see so much water again.

Maybe it was because we hoped we’d never see so much water again.

Today, they put a call out in my hometown for volunteers to help sandbag the water plant.

Please pray for these good people. Please may the rain let up. Please keep everyone safe.