Update II: Electric Boogaloo

Well, I just spent somewhere between two and a half and three hours sandbagging, and as with the proverbial man who flew in from Minneapolis, boy, are my arms tired. (Also my shoulders, and my upper back, and my lower back...)

I was working in the sandbag-passing line between the main library and EPB, and the river was only a few feet from spilling over its banks; the EPB parking lot already had a rather large lake of water in it. By now EPB is locked down, not to be entered until the waters recede (which will probably be on the matter of one to three months, or more...I hear it took 3 months to recede here in '93, and this flood is going to be way worse than '93's), as have most of the buildings between it and the river; those close buildings on the other side of the river closed a few days ago. (The Union closed yesterday.) Pretty much everything else between EPB and the engineering building is closing tomorrow; there was a huge wall of sandbags in front of Lindquist Center.

Traffic is horrible, as most of the highways in and out of the city are closed, as well as pretty much any street around the affected parts of campus. I heard a ridiculous number of fire trucks today, and saw a firetruck and an ambulance with their sirens on pull up in front of the liquor store near my apartment to administer to someone lying on the sidewalk. (Heatstroke, maybe?)

It's been very surreal, being in Iowa City during all this. At least they cancelled summer classes next week.

Edit: I was talking to lordtravis, and apparently they're advising anyone within the 500-year floodplain, and for a few blocks around, to be prepared for evacuation within the next few days. Guess who lives (just barely) within the 500-year floodplain? D:

GODDAMN CREEK, AND GODDAMN ME FOR NOT HAVING RENTER'S INSURANCE

Fortunately, Travis and his wife teachingmusic have offered to let me stay with them (in West Liberty, where the flood is pretty much guaranteed not to reach unless Iowa City suddenly gets renamed Atlantis). So I'm gonna work my ass off tonight packing stuff up, Travis is gonna come by tomorrow and we're gonna try to get as much as we can out in his van, and generally try to get an early start on getting stuff out before the evacuation order comes out and things get REALLY crazy (assuming it doesn't come tonight or tomorrow morning). Fun days. D:

Edit 2: OMG I HAVE INTERNET AT HOME AGAIN, YIPPEEEEEE