Flooded Northeast Iowa

Sunset in Manchester, Iowa

Iowa is again in the news for flooding. Just two years removed from the flood of all floods, a dam break brings in the national media for a look at our situation. Iowa set a record for wettest month ever. July, to this point, is the 7th wettest on record.

Again, eastern Iowa is the spot. But this time, a little more north than before. I did hit some of the homelands in the damage tour on Friday and Saturday.

Fontana Park, Buchanan County, Iowa

That included spots in Buchanan County at Fontana Park, just north of  Independence. The park was mostly open, but you didn’t want to get to close to the edge of the river, because it was moving quickly into the Wapsie.

I did get to have a nice conversation with a couple of Amish boys who were checking out the water.

Then I got a look at the Fayette County town of Oelwein.

A couple of people told me Friday afternoon to check out City Park on the southside of town. I did. The park was closed to the south, but you could still look at the dam from the east side. You know, the place with the big jet airplane on stilts? For the second time in 2 weeks, Oelwein had almost 10 inches of rain in just a few hours.

A drive east on Highway 3 saw water had been around. Lots of matted down grass along the road and in the waterways was visible.

The Maquoketa River through Backbone State Park

I made it partially into Backbone State Park. The Maquoketa River runs through the park. Just upstream in Strawberry Point, almost 9 inches of rain fell Friday morning. That water just ran down stream. The view here is off the river running through the park before it got to the boat house.

JHS friend Brian Stark works in Strawberry Point most days and said if he was going to work on Friday, he wouldn’t have made it as the water was partially blocking the driveway to his workplace.

Lamont, IA

Just east of the park is the town of Lamont. Volunteers were helping city crews sand bag around the water plant.

The stream that runs through town is regularly no bigger than what a garden hose produces. But early Friday, it was a raging river and debris was left behind.

This too, is the second time Lamont was hammered with a lot of water in a short period of time. This water eventually flows into the Maquoketa River.

Are you detecting a pattern yet?

Follow the money, or in this case, follow the water.

Manchester's downtown from Main Street looking east from the Maquoketa River bridge.

That’s what I did when I ended up in Manchester Friday evening where the Maquoketa River set a record of over 22 feet. The record was last set in 2004 with two previous high water marks coming in 2008. The images from these places are amazing. Thanks to Jesse Gavin for the help in navigating town.

I did find an interesting thing in looking at NOAA’s Advanced Hydrological historical data for Manchester. All of the historic crests have been in the last 10 years.

Historical Crests
(1) 21.66 ft on 05/23/2004
(2) 20.80 ft on 05/26/2008
(3) 20.50 ft on 06/09/2008
(4) 20.10 ft on 05/30/2008
(5) 18.95 ft on 04/25/2008
(6) 18.35 ft on 06/04/2002
(7) 14.17 ft on 05/31/2004
(8) 12.18 ft on 04/04/2007
(9) 11.37 ft on 07/09/2003
(10) 10.31 ft on 06/17/2004

Hardee's drive thru in Manchester. July 23, 2010.

Even the lowest level was in 2005. What’s going on there?

That is where the media was camped out for evening live shots.

Also, Manchester was one week away from hosting RAGBRAI riders on the last overnight stop of the trip. There was no denying the town, they were going to be back and ready for all those bike riders when they peddled into town.

But it was Saturday that provided the historic moments.

I stayed in Jesup with my parents to be closer to Independence and other northeast areas if the forecasted rains came through as predicted. A tremendous amount of lightning hit with this storm, but the rain wasn’t as heavy in the hard hit areas of Friday night. But I saw a tweet from Justin Gehrts of KCRG-TV Saturday morning that got my attention.

It was about concerns over the dam at Lake Delhi. I knew that wasn’t far away, so I headed the IPTV cruiser to that direction.

Delaware County bridge just above Lake Delhi's beginning.

I did find a flooded crossing of Highway D5x and X 21 that was going around the bridge to a low road to the west. I kept heading downstream to get a look at the dam. My father had said that dam was a favorite place to fish of his. (There’s a story written Wednesday that says the fishing species will drastically change now that the dam is gone.)

I did get a look at the dam from the east side, but at that time, no water was over the dam. That would start happening about 90 minutes later and then the failure of the dam would happen around 1pm Saturday.

Those images were captured by many outlets. The Des Moines Register has good shots, so does the Gazette of Cedar Rapids.

IPTV’s Steve Carns was back at Lake Delhi on Monday. He said what was left of the lake looked like a movie set. The water that broke through the side of the dam drained the lake in just a few hours. It was like pulling the plug on the bathtub.

Thanks to KMCH radio for regular updates on the flooding. They were doing what local radio is meant to do, inform the locals on what’s happening. I struggled to find fresh newscasts that morning that weren’t pre-recorded or not covering this story.

This week I’ll be writing a story on the flood situation in Iowa and what impact that has on rural America for Market to Market. That story will air at 8p Friday night in Iowa.

Levi turns 10 and a BLT

Levi is an active 10 months.

The 27th of July marked 10 months of our little Levi in the world.

He’s an active little boy and at the busy stage. He makes life interesting.

He can crawl, stand on his own, cruise and may be walking soon. He’s also got two teeth on the bottom and two starting to break through on the top. That has made him a little more ornery this week, but we’ll get past it.

His hair isn’t quite blonde yet, but it is getting close. We did get a second haircut for Levi this weekend.

Noah has his first BLT.

Noah was very blonde at this age.

Now he just eats BLTs. He likes bacon. Lettuce is tolerable, but tomatoes are ‘yucky’ in his words. He started with all ingredients, but lifted the tomatoes after a few bites.

He does like bacon, I’ll give him that. Maybe we’ll head to Baconfest later this year.

I think the only reason Noah ate as much as he did, I said that me and his Aunt Kris used to eat them a lot growing up.

What’s in the water?

Looks like I’ll have to write a post about all the pregnancies in TV news in Iowa.

Jeriann Ritter announced this morning on WHO-TV13 that she’s expecting baby number two.

That news comes as Channel 13 morning reporter Megan Reuther is due to deliver baby number three this fall.

Plus you’ve got Emily Price and Amanda Lewis pregnant at KCCI with Molly Nelson and Katie Ward already mammas.

And Amanda Krenz just delivered her second baby with her co-anchor Rachel Pierce just returning to WOI-TV from maternity leave.

That’s a whole lotta babies.

So, what’s in the water at these places? It really is a baby boom in local TV news. Usually it was everyone but the news talent that would have children.

Shoved, egged and hacked. Did I mention poo?

It was night for CBS affiliates in Iowa.

First off, KGAN takes the prize for two big stories to get you talking.

The first involved a CBS2 TV crew. They were shoved, on camera, while talking to the mother of a teen accused of vandalizing at Kingston Stadium. Reporter Chris Jose knocked on the front door, photojournalist Kenny Becker had the camera rolling and got this exchange.

He was just wanting answers, but what he got was a whole lot more. That’s why you knock on the door, you never know what you’re going to get.

Like getting egged. They were also egged while on the story in Cedar Rapids.

KGAN-TV also had another story to get you talking.

This one was a little more ewww factor. Maybe this will help set the tone. Always good to post parts from Caddyshack.

This tweet was posted earlier in the day by reporter Kelly O’Connell.

She went to a Cedar Rapids pool to report on the problem with solids and liquids showing up in the pool. She talked to a couple of parents in the story that covers baby blowouts, diapers, poop, pee and many other things.

Here’s here story.

The third story involves the CBS station out of Des Moines, KCCI-TV8.

And KCCI’s Eric Hanson shared his on-line nightmare as his account was hacked last week. He was able to put a creative spin on the story to say what happened.

I did get the email from Eric last week. He’s had that hotmail account for years. I mean, it goes back to right after he left Wartburg and his days at KWWL-TV. It was a simple HansonE7@hotmail.com account. It doesn’t matter that I told you his email, it is now a hacked account.

Eric had to remake a hotmail and facebook account because of this mess. But how do know that was the REAL Eric Hanson not a scam? They can do tricks with camera angles, you know. I never did see how big his feet were.

See, a KCCI story with no mention of Bryan Karrick leaving KCCI. Or did I just do that now?

BTW, his replacement has been named. Wes Callison is coming to KCCI from WWMT-TV in Grand Rapids/Kalamazoo, Michigan. He’s their weekend morning meteorologist.

Getting Ready for Iowa State Fair 2010

Goodman Family Farm

I’m knee-deep in Iowa State Fair preparation here at IPTV.

Today I’m editing a piece about one of the farm families of the year. This is the first year for the Way We Live Award.

We went to visit the Goodman family near Oskaloosa and Rose Hill a couple of weeks ago. They have a dairy operation. It is a family farm as both the parents and their adult children are involved. Even the grandkids are now running around helping. And I am serious when I say the 2-year-olds are helping.

You can see the Goodman’s win their award on August 19th inside the Knapp Animal Learning Center.

John Torpy working had inside the Jacobson Arena.

I’ve also got a feature on the new Jacobson Exhibition Center to put together as well.

That is a massive building near the 4-H building on the southwest corner of the fairgrounds. Just the indoor warm up arena is big enough to have the Iowa Barnstormers practice there.

The building was under construction last year and you can see that feature here. It was part of our Iowa Public Television Fair 2009 coverage.

What else will be on TV this year? Any thing you look forward to seeing each year on IPTV’s Fair programs?

20 years in the making

When you grow up in a small town, one of the biggest deals in town after cruising, is athletics.

That was certainly true in Jesup when I was growing up there in the 80s and 90s.

Sports were a chance of escape or adventure. No one went to the pros, but to Des Moines for the state tournaments. We never sent teams, but would go to see others play and dream that maybe someday we’d play at Veteran’s Auditorium.

Everyone went to the basketball games, especially when both boys and girls teams were good, football games, even when they didn’t win a game for years and later softball games.

Program page from the Iowa High School Athletic Union. (image from Jaye Donlea Miller)

During the summer of 1990, I was getting ready to enter high school. I wasn’t good enough to be a pinch runner for the varsity baseball team, but knew many of the guys on the team and our field was in the same complex as the softball team. So, we got to know some of the girls as well. Who am I kidding, of course we knew WHO the girls were, they didn’t know who WE were.

The summer of 1990, something special was brewing on the softball side of the complex. The girls were playing great ball and were winning a lot of games. In fact, they won 39 of them and only lost four before making the state tournament for the time in school history.

This year, the Jesup High School Softball team is going back to state for the first time since 1992. But just two years before in 1990, it wasn’t a return trip, but an inaugural venture to Fort Dodge.

Team picture following welcome home ceremony. (image from Jesup Citizen Herald/Jaye Donley Miller)

Its been 20 years since the girls in orange and blue almost did the unthinkable and dominate large school en route to a state title. Back then, all classes were in one big tournament. Jesup beat Ottumwa, before losing to eventual state champion West Des Moines Valley in the semi-finals. Jesup beat Mason City Newman (who had my future co-worker Amy Fleming on that team as an 8th grader) in the consolation game.

Rod Elson was the head coach, who also was the wrestling coach. Workouts for the girls looked like something out of the wrestling room. They were intense, as was he.

That 1990 team was fast. They stole a lot of bases and had overall speed. Many of the girls also ran track, even making it to state track in several events.

Jody Bolton was a senior playing center. Jaye Donlea played short and batted second most nights. Sophomore Amy Kies was the big power bat. She played first. Nan Schlee split pitching and second base duties with her twin sister Babs. Carrie Zuck played OF and also DH’d, she was just a freshman that year. Seniors Amber Kresser caught, with Tracie Bickert in left and Suzie Zuck in right. Another freshman starter was Kellie Bevans at 3rd.

Also on the team were: Shannon Foster (who would pitch a perfect game at state in 1992), Missy Beyer, Jill Fox, Amy Cagley, Heather Westphal, Mary Anton, Amanda Kopplin and Nikki Jacoby.

Many members of that 1990 squad would go on to play in college. One of those players was Jaye (Donlea) Miller.

“It was an awesome experience, not just for us players, but also for the parents, community, etc.,” Donlea, now Miller said. ” It made it even more exciting beating those larger schools, showing everyone that we could play with the “big dogs”. Coach Elson had a big role in starting a softball phenom in Jesup with our class. He worked us hard, but it surely paid off!”

Miller went on to play at NIACC in Mason City. Then she would play at UNI in Cedar Falls. She now has a daughter that will get to see Jesup on the stage this week against Mount Vernon in the 2010 State Softball Tournament.

“My daughter is at the age now where she is really getting into softball, so it’s nice to share this experience with her. Taking her to these state games will show her how exciting it is to play at this level,” Jaye added.

I remember taking a pep bus from Jesup to Ft. Dodge. It was a long trip, but fun to be part of that experience. Many other people drove. It was a “last one out turn out the lights” kind of thing that week.

That fact didn’t go unnoticed for players like Miller. “The most exciting part about playing at the state softball tournament was seeing all our fans cheering us on. I think the whole town was there. I believe Jesup had the most spectators of any school attending!”

“I remember making the trip with grandma and grandpa in the old van. Think we went every game!” said Amy Wood Rahe. The town was all abuzz over that team. Some were even displayed school colors, like Clint Fuller. He, and many others, painted their chests blue or orange to match the school colors.

“Nothing pulls Jesup together like a trip to the state tournament, other than the beer tent at Farmers Day!” said Fuller this week on my Facebook wall.

“This was an awesome experience you’ll never forget and hopefully these girls can come away with the same type of experience and someday share with their kids,” added Miller.

None of the girls on this year’s Jesup squad were alive in 1990. But that doesn’t mean they don’t know about the best finish ever by a Jesup softball team at state. This year’s team could be the cardiac kids as they’ve won several games on the road to state in dramatic fashion. The preview article in the WCF Courier on the team is here.

Leah Durnil leads Jesup to state. (image from Jesup Citizen Herald)

This year’s squad is lead by John Begley. He’s no stranger to the state tourney taking Solon to four straight state tournaments from 2003 to 2006, winning in 2003 while finishing second in ‘05 and ‘06. That’s a pretty good mark and may give the J-Hawks a little advantage. His granddaughter, Kelsey Lough, is the team’s pitcher. Did I mention she’s an 8th grader?

Will Leah Durnil, the girl who hit 2 game-winning home runs, bring her hot bat to Harlan Rogers Park? How about Erica Soppe and second baseman MacKenzie Miller? Will they continue to bring the good gloves to the park?

Best to this year’s squad against Mt. Vernon.

So, we’re at this parade….

Ankeny PD's old-time squad car had to take a break in the Summerfest Parade 2009.

If you like to see error free parades, don’t ask me or my family to attend with you.

Last year at Ankeny’s Summerfest parade, it was the old Ankeny Police squad car that died in front of us. Thanks to the beefy parade goers, the car was quickly pushed off to the side. I think they said the battery was dead or it had overheated.

I guess I should have offered the consulting advice of the ‘show must go on’ mantra this year at the Summerfest Parade. That may have helped what I’m about to tell you.

Ankeny's Summerfest Parade 2010

This year we sat in a different location for the third time in 3 years. We’re still looking for that great place to watch the 2 hour commercial of Ankeny’s great businesses. The groups in this parade really know how to hand out information their business.

One of my favorite floats is the movie theatre that hands out popcorn. MMMMM, popped popcorn.

About an hour in, a pick up truck pulling a boat stopped in front of us. The driver looked frustrated as he shut of the engine and the steam rolled out from under the hood and under the engine.

I first thought he’d overheated. It was pushing the mid-80s by this time already and he wasn’t moving that fast to generate cool air on the engine.

But, the driver just started telling people on his float to get out of the boat and he also told the floats behind him to go around.

So, like a good show, the parade went on.

But our view was blocked. That kind of put the end of our parade experience, which was fine since it was starting to get hot.

Eventually the crew of this float unhooked and pushed the truck out the way and another truck came in to pull the boat.

No need to mention the business, just look at the picture.

At least the float with the stripper pole didn’t get stuck in front of us.

Day 6- Day of Delays

Grandma Honey with two of her Yeager grandsons.

Day 6 was scheduled to the final day of the Yeager Boys Home Alone 3. For awhile though, it looked like we were going into extra innings.

We did start off right by having pancakes with Grandma Honey. A big thanks to her for, as what Noah calls, “a sleepover.”

I guess I did jinx Amy’s return home. I told co-worker John Torpy all our delays and cancellations have been used up because of the volcano in the YBHA2.

A look inside the new Jacobson Exhibition Arena at the Iowa State Fairgrounds.

John and I were at the Iowa State Fairgrounds today working on a feature piece. The plan was to have Amy’s folks pick her up at the airport today. Wil and Paula were not as involved this trip because we want to make sure Wil continues his recovery from last month’s time in the hospital. He’s doing better, but no need to unleash the Yeager Boys on them all week.

Back to the delay… I should have said we were in the clear AFTER her plane was on the ground in Des Moines.

Amy was a few feet from being in the air, but a maintenance problem forced the plane to turn around, after is shoved off from the gate at Chicago’s O’Hare airport.

Then her and the other 3 in the travel party, boarded another plane. Did I mention she was again traveling with her boss, Gary? I think we’re done letting those two travel together as delays are starting to become commonplace.

That one too, had mechanical issues. So, United got the Deere 4 on an American Airlines flight for Des Moines.

What you talking about, Noah?

I brought the boys home from school, got them fed and ready for whatever time Amy was going to come home. If it was decent hour, I wanted to make sure the boys got to see their mom tonight and not have to wait until morning. You can see there was more food on them than in them. Noah has stopped using his fork.

About 6p we loaded up and headed for the airport and I was hoping Levi would sleep a bit and even a few ZZZs from Noah would do his body good. Sure enough, both fell asleep on the ride and were fresh for when we finally got mommy off the plane.

Levi again clung to Daddy at the airport, not sure who this woman was with his brother. I’m sure by 9 AM Saturday, Levi will again be a momma’s boy.

It was only a 4 hour delay. We’ll take that over 6 days every time.

Day 5 – A trip out

How old does this guy look?

This will be a short post on Day 5. I’m just getting done with talking to Grandma Honey. When Yeager’s gather, there’s a requirement that no one goes to bed before 11.

My mom came down to watch the boys tonight while I had a call committee meeting at church. She got to spend a little time with the boys, her oldest and youngest grandsons. Actually, she could have picked any of her kids to help this week. 3 of us were left at home this week, while the 4th one was who travelled out-of-town.

Doesn't everyone have a TV camera come with them to the museum?

Noah and I made a special trip to the Science Center of Iowa Thursday. We were needed for an IPTV shoot on the space program. I think the video may be used in September.

So, Noah and I got  a free look around some of the exhibits.

This included the area where you make a rocket and you get to launch it. I took this video of one of Noah’s launches.

We also got to take in exploring the planets and the moons. The telescopes were a bit over Noah’s head, so he and I mostly played with legos. About half-way through this section, Noah decided to get sad, saying he didn’t want to go back to school. He gets that way on field trips when one of us goes along with him on the trip. He did it for me at the zoo and with Amy when she went to Toy Story 3 last month.

But, Noah got better and we went back to school so I could get to work.

Levi had another good day. Grandma got to put him to bed. She also put Noah to bed as well. I’m still not sure what questions he asked her, but maybe if she had a walking stick.

Amy is scheduled to come home Friday. No volcanoes yet. We’ll see if something else will cause delay to YBHAIII.

Emotional night in the spotlight for Iowa

Thomas family on stage at the ESPYs. (image from espn.com)

Wednesday night’s ESPYs on ESPN were only worth tuning in for 2 things.

One to see the UNI Panther’s win the ESPY for Best Upset. The other was a TV network showing what is one of the best things about television, conveying emotion.

Seeing the feature on the Ed Thomas was powerful. It was narrated by Kiefer Sutherland.

Brett Favre introduced the set up piece and the presentation of the award to the Thomas family.

Todd, Jan and Aaron Thomas at the ESPYs. (image from espn.com)

The speech by Aaron Thomas was better than any Oscars acceptance speech. The Aplington-Parkersburg athletic director did his school, state and most importantly his father proud.

Here’s the link to the speech. It is well worth your time to view the speech.

You could see people in the crowd wiping away tears and a very somber tone was visible in the Nokia Theater.

I do have a copy of the feature piece done by ESPN, but until ESPN posts the story, there won’t be any copies online because you can’t upload copyrighted material. You will have to watch the replay of the broadcast. The first re-airing of the event is Thursday, June 15 at 8p Central on ESPN2. The next replay is Sunday at 2p Central on ESPN2.

UNI Men's basketball coach Ben Jacobson on stage at the ESPYs. (image from AP)

The Northern Iowa basketball category will be after the monologue and about the 3rd award given. The Thomas feature which includes a conversation with the Becker family will be shortly after that. Our IPTV interview with Joan Becker is here. We talked about forgiveness with her.

Here’s a link to the Des Moines Register story on the event.

Here’s a link to the Des Moines Register story.
Here’s the Waterloo Cedar Falls Courier story.

WOI-TV in Des Moines had sports director John Walters and Dave Zawilinski in Los Angeles for the event. ABC5 is doing an entire show this Saturday at 630p. It will be a look behind the scenes at the ESPYs from the Iowa perspective. Dave says they have an interview with Favre.

KWWL-TV was there and is planning some behind the scenes stuff as well. We will post that when it becomes available.

Also give Sean Keeler’s blog a look at his takes from what the World Wide Leader did with the Iowa stories from Ali Farokhmanesh and Adam Koch to Todd and Aaron Thomas.