"Never prouder of our UI community than those three hours in the rain"

Mike Andreski, a 1983 pharmacy alumnus and current grad student, recounts sandbagging with his family:

"At 6 PM on Thursday, June 11, my family and I watched the KCRG news coverage of the impending flood crest. We saw that many of the volunteers sandbagging were reaching the point of exhaustion, and we made the decision that it was our turn.

We quickly changed into some work clothes, grabbed our shovels and drove over the Burlington Street bridge from our west side home to pitch in. We parked near the Alpha Chi Sigma house on Market Street and walked down the hill past the Chemistry Building, past the parking ramp, and then down to the IMU. As we were crossing Madison Street, we saw President Mason and her husband getting into their car to leave the area. Proceeding to the circle near the river, we were quickly put to work filling sand bags.

As a group of four, two of us shoveled sand while the other two held bags open for filling. The piles of sand were covered with several groups of people. From our conversations we found that the groups consisted of faculty, staff, undergraduate and graduate students, alumni, and others who wanted to help.

As the groups quickly transformed piles of sand and empty bags into pallets of filled bags, it started to rain, lightning and thunder. While we were tired, filthy, and wet, almost everyone moved to the growing wall of sand bags between Danforth Chapel and the loading dock of the IMU. As we passed the bags I told my son, an incoming freshman and third generation Hawkeye, how proud his departed grandfather, a UI College of Medicine graduate, would be of him. My thoughts were on the nearby Danforth Chapel where my first wife and I were married 24 years earlier, and I wondered how it would fare in the upcoming flood crest.

Once all the bags were stacked, we all wandered away from the IMU, tired, but hopeful that our efforts would be successful. While we were tired, filthy, and wet, we were energized by the cooperative spirit we had been a part of. My wife, a staff member, my older son, an incoming freshman, my younger son, another future Hawk, and myself, an alumnus and graduate student, were never prouder of our UI community than in those 3 hours in the rain."

"Community is the best way to deal with disaster"

Christopher Clark, a graduate student in political science displaced from Hawkeye Court Apartments, writes:

"The week of the flood, I had just returned from spending 12 days at home in Kansas City, Missouri. It is always nice to see family, but I missed having my own space.

Initially, I did not think that the flood would affect me. When I learned that I had to evacuate my apartment, the flood became personal, instead of being this abstract thing that was influencing the lives of thousands around me.

I called my pastor's family, and they graciously agreed to let me stay with them. I called my mother to get advice on what I should pack. I packed up my Social Security card, tax information, and bank statements. I took pictures of loved ones, my vast music and movie collection, and clothes to last me a couple of weeks. As I looked at all the material things around me, it occurred to me that what really matters in life is not the stuff that I have, but rather the relationships that I have. It is one of those moments that will remain with me for a long time.

Over the next few days, I sat with my pastor's family and watched as people's homes floated away. I saw the extensive damage to Cedar Rapids and I realized that thousands of people's lives would be forever changed by this natural disaster. We were able to grieve together through the flood, which I found to be the best way of dealing with that emotion.

Initially, I tried not to feel negatively about my situation. Nonetheless, as I talked more with people here in Iowa and with family at home, I realized that it was fine for me to be upset, frustrated, and irritated. I had been displaced because of the flood, so it was not abnormal for me to be bothered.

Through the flood, I was able to relate to how strangers in a new town must feel. I was out of my comfort zone. I was dependent on other people for my wellbeing. I was vulnerable. I could have been prideful and obstinate, choosing to sleep in my car instead of staying at my pastor's home. Instead, I chose to accept the hospitality, community, and love that were extended to me.

After this experience, I am going to extend myself to someone the next chance I have to do so. I know that my experience with this flood serves a greater purpose, and I think part of that is to learn to empathize with strangers.

This experience has taught me a number of things. The first is that we have little control over our lives. A second lesson is that material things are less important than relationships. Things do not define me. On the other hand, I need relationships with people, and those very much define me. A third lesson is that community is the best way to deal with disaster. There is inexplicable value in experiencing difficulty with other people—I could not imagine dealing with this alone.

The fourth and final lesson is that any one of us, at any time, could become the stranger who needs assistance. Instead of a self-centered and cynical approach to human suffering, we ought to extend ourselves to them and do whatever is within our power to ameliorate their plight."

"To ones deserving more than thanks"

UI senior Alexandra Khoshaba writes:

"I used to think that natural disasters were merely spectacles separated by thousands of miles, and that they were only as real as the pictures that you see on television. Everyone heard about Hurricane Katrina, the tsunami in Thailand, and the earthquake in China, but only the people that lived through them can actually feel the magnitude of such a catastrophe. Whoever came up with the term 'Seeing Is Believing' is far more intelligent than anyone I’ve ever known, and it is only when a person becomes a part of something much bigger than themselves can they actually start to look at the world and themselves as a piece of it, a bit differently.

Over the past three weeks I’ve seen thousands of UI students, faculty, and members of the community sandbag the homes and buildings that once contained the sacred artifacts that defined our education. I’ve donated supplies, and we have all made honest attempts at bringing normalcy back to our city. Above all, the most powerful and surprising force present in our community is not the water, but the inherent goodness of the members of our community. Sandbagging, gathering supplies, and contributing money have all been the most publicized form of support, but there is something else that our community needs to know.

So many of us have already spent tireless hours preparing for the flood, but our efforts cannot stop there. Yes the river has crested, class has resumed, and the Ped Mall is full, but there are still people out there that need help. Over the past week I’ve had the pleasure of visiting the courageous residents of Normandy Drive, here in Iowa City, and they have all been more than willing to let a UI student into their crumbling world. Many of the residents of Normandy Drive are professors, retired faculty, and elderly persons who are too kind to ask anyone for help. Take it from me…they need it. I know of a woman who had a heart attack trying to clean out her basement. I also know of a professor who is selflessly continuing on with summer class despite losing the place that her children have called home for their entire lives. Finally, I know that these residents are not getting much needed help and support from various recovery agencies, and are on the verge of losing everything.

Having spent four years at the UI, I know how many professors, business owners, and members of our community have changed my life. I know they have also changed the lives of thousands of others as well. It is not uncommon at The University of Iowa to hear students thanking their professors as they hand in their final exams, but how often do we, as students, actually have a chance to show them that we really mean it? All that you need to enter their secret world is a pair of rubber boots, a tetanus shot, and a big smile. It may sound completely ridiculous to just 'show up ready to work,' but give it five minutes and you’ll understand what I’m talking about.

The sights, sounds, and smells lingering on Normandy Drive are absolutely heart-wrenching and the entire area provides a bit of a culture shock. The spirit, motivation, determination, and heart of the neighborhood far outweighs everything else. Unrequited love truly is an amazing gift, but what is more astonishing is returning that very same compassion to the people who deserve more than just a 'Thank You'."

"Hold on to hope"

Recent UI grad Kimn Swenson Gollnick writes:

"As a nontraditional adult student, I managed to graduate from the University of Iowa last month just a week before my son graduated from high school and just three weeks before this historic flood swallowed eastern Iowa. The flood made us breathless with the incomprehensible level of rising rivers that left such devastation in their wake. Since I live in Marion with my family, I worried not only about Cedar Rapids but about the condition of the UI campus, particularly the EPB and Adler Journalism buildings where I spent so much time these past two years.

Just as I prepared to help with sandbagging efforts, officials closed I-380, cutting off access between Cedar Rapids and Iowa City. I never felt so helpless. So I called a volunteer line—if I couldn't help in Iowa City, I certainly could help in Cedar Rapids. I now have a Tuesday route for Meals-on-Wheels delivering hot lunches to the needy. My husband and I delivered snacks and drinks to the police department when officers were working 16-hour shifts. I helped sort, fold and distribute donated clothing and shoes at Mission of Hope. I helped with the Red Cross distribution at the Sam's Club parking lot on Blairs Ferry Road, loading victims' cars with water, clean-up kits, spray sanitizer and boxes of masks. Many of these weary souls smiled through the numbness.

Over the past two weeks I have met dozens of people who I know only by first names but for whom I feel a great and glorious bond. In retrospect, I experienced Mount St. Helens when it blew in Washington state and it pulled the citizens together. Now I am in Iowa, working alongside my neighbors, students, professors and friends, fellow citizens all. Hold on to hope and we will get through this horrific event together."

"Thinking of Iowa"

Tom Swick, travel writer for the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel, notes in his blog that news of the flood triggered memories of a trip to Iowa:

"I skipped through Cedar Rapids but stopped in Iowa City, which quickly became one of my favorite college towns, with one of my favorite independent bookstores, Prairie Lights. I assume the bookstore's OK, but I heard about the people forming a chain to move books out of the first floor of the university library, where I spent a quiet June afternoon just three summers ago.

Everywhere I went in Iowa, on both my trips, people lived up to their reputation as friendly, considerate, decent - the kind of folks you'd like to have as neighbors. I always thought that if foreigners really wanted to learn about this country, they should visit Iowa."

For Summer Rep, the shows go on

When Dave McGraw last saw the David Thayer Theatre at the UI Theatre Building, thousands of costumes hung from the rigging, mute witnesses above the vacant stage. “When we closed up the space, it was a little eerie, but also kind of serene to see that wave of costumes stretch up to the ceiling,” he says.

Theatre students, faculty, and staff had just cleared costume and prop collections from the basement in four and a half hours—30 minutes quicker than back in the summer of 1993. The Department of Theatre Arts’ experience with the earlier flood had taught them to think and move fast once the river started to rise.

The creeping waters also forced the question of whether Iowa Summer Repertory Theatre—the department’s annual series showcasing the work of a featured playwright with full-scale productions and staged readings—could go on.

“We were at odds about whether we should continue,” says McGraw, a lecturer and production manager who has worked on Summer Rep for five years. “We knew it would be hard to go to rehearsal knowing everything that was happening outside.”

But tonight “Wonder of the World” opens at Iowa City West High School, the substitute site that’s welcomed Summer Rep. Performances of the play and other works by featured writer David Lindsay-Abaire continue through July.

West High also played host to several hundred National Guard troops who bunked in the gym, as well as the congregation of Parkview Church, who continue to share the auditorium with the UI theatre company. (“We've been spiffing up their lighting a little bit, I think,” McGraw says.)

The overnight move to a new venue was fairly seamless. “Many of us come from touring backgrounds, “ McGraw says. “It was a huge group effort, but it hearkened back to the days when you’d put everything on a truck and away you’d go, not sure where you’d wind up next.”

Of course it hasn’t all been easy. Some cast and crew rushed out to sandbag in the morning, then came to rehearsal. Many know folks who’ve been displaced from their homes. Though guardedly optimistic, none are sure what they’ll find once they return to the Theatre Building.

All are determined to put on a show, however, if only to offer weary, worried audiences a break. Last night, they performed a free preview open to the public.

“When we started rehearsals in May, our artistic director Eric Forsythe said all these shows concerned people coping with extraordinary circumstances, people just trying to get through the day,” McGraw says. “It’s an appropriate season for this year, because our world seems pretty messed up. But the sun keeps rising.”

Photo gallery

As noted in a post over the weekend, Dave Jackson of Facilities Management has created an online gallery that shows flood preparations and provides a good account of staff and volunteer efforts to protect the campus.

At the DI, the news keeps flowing

As the Iowa River rose, crested, and gradually receded, members of the University of Iowa community and Iowa City metro area hungered for the latest news.

The Daily Iowan, the University’s student-produced newspaper, wasn’t about to stop the presses, even though floodwaters forced these journalists and staff members from their state-of-the-art home.

More than two dozen people—full-time staff, their family members, and many students from the newsroom—worked painstakingly on Friday, June 13, to evacuate the DI office, located on the first floor of the Adler Journalism and Mass Communications Building. Much of this work had to be done in dark stairwells, as power was cut during the evacuation due to water encroaching the building’s basement.

“We started moving things right away that morning,” says Pete Recker, DI circulation manager. “At first we moved a lot of things off the floor, but as the morning went along we learned that we could have up to 10 feet of water on our floor. So, we began moving anything we could up to the second and third floors.

“We were moving some larger items on the elevator, but by our second trip up you could hear the water coming in the basement—the elevator was promptly shut down,” Recker continues. “The power was cut in the building a short time later. Everything was hauled up dark stairways until about 2:30 p.m.”

Recker estimates about 40 computers, 75 chairs, 25 to 30 filing cabinets were removed from the DI quarters, along with tables, all business files, the web server, and even a year’s worth of back issues—25 from each day.

“We even took down some light fixtures from above our copy desk,” Recker says.

Yet the paper continued to roll out. In fact, the Daily Iowan printed Saturday and Sunday issues on June 14 and 15; the publication typically comes out Monday through Friday.

The circulation and business staff moved to space within the Gazette’s Iowa City offices, which are located in University Capitol Centre. The newsroom staff set up shop in Schaeffer Hall. During the week of June 16–20, Recker says nearly 6,000 papers were printed each day, and he expects to ramp up to 10,500 soon, possibly by Friday, June 27.

“We are all working out of donated spaces, our homes, and through our cell phones right now,” Recker says. “It’s been a challenge, but we are an efficient staff and our communication has been great and allowed us to succeed through it all. And our delivery staff has done a great job through all of this.”

Some DI staff members were allowed back into the Adler building on Thursday, June 19, to retrieve a few things. “It looks like we won’t have any damage—we got lucky,” Recker says. “We can’t wait to get back in.”

"I hope we all stay together like this"

From Kajari Ghosh Dastidar, a UI graduate student in computer science:

"Slowly and steadily the bad news started to pour in. Roads were getting closed and many people were evacuating from their homes. The news became a big reality to me when I heard one of my friends was forced to evacuate from the Hawkeye Court apartments. I was ready to host her, but she luckily got an empty room in a friend's apartment.

Fortunately, my apartment was saved from the flood, and I never had any problem. But I wanted to do something to help my community, and was not sure how to proceed with that. It is good that I was following the news closely, and regularly checking the University website. Everyone was calling for sand baggers, and I immediately went to the Main Library parking lot to join hands with others. It was an amazing site! Hundreds of students, faculty, staff and citizens were working like close friends in harmony. Everyone had the concern on their face, but at the same time they were energetic and happy.

I was there for hours like everyone else. It seemed nobody is getting tired! Everyone wanted to do more and never stop! What an amazing community spirit! I again went for sand bagging the next day on Madison street. Even my friend who was evacuated from her apartment had come. She said 'I don't want to see any more people forced to leave their houses.' We worked there till 3 pm when a University staff member came and told us to stop working, as a storm was brewing by then. We were all happy when he said the volunteers have surpassed the day's quota, and we have lots of extra sand bags to distribute to the community. It was an incredible feeling. Everybody started clapping, and we were shouting GO HAWKS! We wanted to work more and more and more, and save our beloved city from the flood waters.

We are going through a rough time. But, this showed how strong our community is! I hope we all stay together like this, joining hands, and very soon, we will be able to leave it behind as a bad past."

"The earth silvers like a river we're in"

The American Public Media show "Weekend America" this weekend features an account of the flood and reflections on nature by James Galvin, poet and faculty member at the Iowa Writers' Workshop, including his poem "Testimony":

You can't step into the same
River even once,
And why would you want to? You can't
Lie down without turning your back
On someone. The sun slips
Like butter in a pan.

The eastern sky arrives
On the back stoop in its dark
Suit. It draws itself up
Full height to present its double
Rainbow like an armful of flowers.
Thank you, they're lovely.

I step outside where the wind
Lifts my hair and it's just
Beginning to rain in the sun,
And the earth silvers like a river
We're in, I swear to God,
And you can't step out of a river

Either. Not once.

For Facilities Management, an invaluable army of volunteers

As the Iowa River swelled during the first week of June, Facilities Management staff worked around the clock to stay ahead of the flood waters.

But they were exhausted and overwhelmed by the task of protecting a growing number of University of Iowa buildings. On Friday, June 6, a call for volunteers went out by the Office of Student Life and UI Student Government. Within 30 minutes, hundreds of students showed up to help.

“The volunteers overwhelmed and invigorated us,” says Dave Jackson, assistant to the associate vice president for facilities management. “We absolutely couldn’t have done this without the volunteers.”

Throughout the next week, thousands of students, faculty, staff, and strangers filled and tied sandbags, formed sandbag lines, and built walls around buildings.

Guided by the University’s Flood Emergency Response Plan—finalized in April 2007 for a 100-year flood, not a 500-year flood as this was—Jackson helped coordinate the efforts, showing volunteers how high to build the walls and organizing groups in locations where the need was greatest. As new estimates showed the waters would rise higher than previously expected, volunteers returned to build the walls higher.

The atmosphere was festive at times. Old friends reunited; new friendships were formed. Jackson jotted down many of the names on a battered clipboard he carried with him. There was the principal from a local school and his family. There was the student government president and the faculty senate president. There were the Amish men and fraternity members. And there was the Iowa City contractor—whose own home had been destroyed by a tornado not long ago—who donated equipment and vehicles to help in the efforts.

When he wasn’t coordinating volunteer efforts or making sandbags, Jackson, an amateur photographer, took pictures of the work that he posted at www.hinkletown.com/iowaflood081.

At the sandbag camps, which were set up along Madison Street and in the Clapp Recital Hall parking lot, natural leaders emerged, Jackson says. People of all ages observed the process, got the hang of it, and showed others what to do. Departments like athletics and student life were particularly valuable in leading the volunteer efforts, Jackson says, because building teamwork is part of their everyday roles.

“Everyone was really coming together to save The University of Iowa,” Jackson says. “It bordered on passion and obsession. They were protecting sacred ground.”

On the arts campus, emergency efforts made a difference

Dan Heater points to the sandbag dike near Hancher Auditorium. Although water topped it June 13, flowing onto the University’s arts campus, the work that went into it wasn’t for naught.

“We kept the river and river current between our dikes,” says Heater, director of building services and landscape services for Facilities Management, noting that by stanching the rapid flow of water, staff and volunteers prevented additional damage to buildings.

Heater led a media tour to parts of the arts campus June 19. With clearance from safety evaluation crews, the group entered Hancher, Clapp Recital Hall, and Voxman Music Building.

In Hancher, water had risen from the basement to about 18 inches above the stage, swamping more than a dozen rows of seats. The cavernous, dank auditorium is a brooding contrast to the Hancher most of us know. (The lobby escaped flood damage.)

Sandbagging on the arts campus began June 7, producing a dike that stretched a quarter mile south from Hancher to the railway bridge over the Iowa River. But heavy rains the night of June 12 raised water levels beyond the point where crews could safely continue their work.

Cleanup efforts are under way at the Main Library, Adler Journalism Building, and other facilities. As the water continues to subside, massive external ventilation systems, pumps, and other equipment will be transported north to the hardest hit part of campus.

The extent of the damage remains to be seen, but Heater praises the heroic contributions of staff and volunteers who fought to contain the river.

“This work paid off for us,” he adds. “We believe it’s going to save the University millions of dollars, and that all the effort made a difference.”

"The spirit of the original endures"

Ron McClellan, art design director for Hancher Auditorium, began posting accounts on his Hancher blog as the waters started to rise. Today he writes about hearing that water had infiltrated the auditorium itself, adding:

"I was reading an article today about the famous American woodworker and furniture maker George Nakashima. His philosophy had to do with giving trees a second life when he used the wood to make furniture by understanding how the wood grew and when cut how to make it the most beautiful. He said that "we must consistently remember the eternal in all that we do"---that the form may change but the spirit endures.

You know how when you are in the middle of something and it seems like everything you see relates to what you are experiencing? I read this and it seemed like it did relate to this current moment. We have a new form of our work at hand and the spirit of the original endures."

At Adler and the library, preserving film from around the world

A crisis like the 2008 flood reveals things we might not notice otherwise—the sense of purpose that can unite a big institution, the muscles that start to ache after a day of sandbagging, and the diverse, often irreplaceable collections housed in pockets of the University.

Take the global cinema archive amassed by the Institute for Cinema and Culture. Many of its film prints, DVDs, and tapes are gifts from visitors to campus, or finds by faculty traveling the world.

Corey Creekmur and colleagues had emptied their department’s basement storage in the Adler Journalism Building. But as the flood threat grew more dire, they decided to evacuate the institute’s first-floor holdings, too.

“By then we had no power and no elevators, yet there was this amazing willingness to pitch in,” says Creekmur, director of the institute and associate professor of cinema and comparative literature, crediting Jenny Ritchie, Lacey Plathe, Sarah and Donald Moeller, Rick Altman, Claudia Pummer, Ellen Sweeney, and Teresa Mangum for their heavy lifting.

Creekmur later helped move Special Collections and University Archives materials from the Main Library basement next door, and found that the library’s Media Services department had likewise rescued its film collection—thousands of reels.

“I knew we had a lot of films,” he says, “but seeing them in stack after stack, literally taking up all the space in Media Services, was astonishing.”

Other sites of note

The Iowa Department of Transportation has posted a gallery of flood-related road damage. Meanwhile, www.2008flood.org offers a community bulletin board for volunteers, materials, notices, and thank you postings.

"The river that divided us will unite us"

UI alumnus Andrew Shaffer (’04 BA, ’08 MBA) provided this account of flood preparations in Iowa City:

"I was part of a volunteer crew sandbagging water department facilities near the dog park. When we thought we were finished with the effort, new estimates and calculations forced us to stack sandbags higher and wider. As we shoveled the sand, we tossed around terms like 'cfs' and 'outflow' like amateur hydrologists. I don’t think anyone fully comprehended what a 'crest of 716.8 feet' really meant, however, until the pictures of downtown Cedar Rapids started to make the rounds. Even though we were under siege from a different river than our brothers and sisters up north, it was clear that Iowa City was next.

With reported road and bridge closures streaming in hourly, Iowa City became a city geographically divided. One evening, I called Iowa City’s 'flood hotline' for directions to the temporary pet shelter at the Johnson County Fairgrounds. The operator suggested taking Riverside Drive south of Highway One. 'I’m there, and it’s flooded now,' I said, exasperated. 'What am I going to do with a trunk full of dog food? I don’t even have a dog!' Thankfully an alternate route on Highway 218 proved to be the ticket.

Just like with Iowa City’s tornado of 2006, we were lucky to once again escape disaster with a minimal loss of life in our state. The economic impact, of course, will be felt for some time. But always remember how lucky we were: As I type this, AP reports are surfacing about a flood in Guangdong, China that has killed at least 50. This comes after an earthquake killed 70,000 in China little more than a month ago.

For now, the sandbagging has stopped and the storms have passed. The water level is slowly dropping from its crest of 717 feet above sea level. I have hope that, as a community, we will come together for the recovery efforts just as we did during the height of the flood. Could anyone have foreseen the hundreds of students and residents working side-by-side to save the city? I believe that the river that divided us will unite us for the long road ahead."

For the bookstore, settling into another temporary home

Staff and students at the University Book Store in the Iowa Memorial Union were looking forward to a busy few months. They’ve got them, but not how—or where—they expected.

“We were really jazzed for the summer,” says Richard Shannon, bookstore manager, noting that he and colleagues had fully settled into their renovated IMU space and had just opened an Apple campus store.

But a rising river pushed their plans to higher ground—on June 23, they will open for business in the University Capitol Center (AKA “the Old Capitol Mall”) in downtown Iowa City.

Like other flood stories, the bookstore evacuation is a tale of quick thinking, determination, and volunteer spirit. Staff started clearing out on Wednesday, June 11, thinking they’d have until the following Monday.

But Monday became Saturday, then Friday afternoon, then Friday morning. Despite the advancing deadline, Shannon says they managed to move 90 percent of their inventory.

“It might have looked chaotic, but it was really pretty organized,” he says, describing efforts by students, IMU staff, and friends across campus who showed up to help. “Whenever someone came into the store, we gave them a box and pointed where to go.”

Hawkeye Moving and Storage delivered the store’s contents to its new location, where it’ll be spread over three retail spaces. The textbook department is the top priority, but other spots will handle Hawkeye apparel and gifts, and electronics and software. Shannon thinks he’ll be able to call back all his current student employees.

It’s not the first temporary setup for the store, which occupied the IMU main lounge during recent renovations. But another move so soon is tough, especially since it meant leaving a redesigned space that had just come to feel like home.

“It’s kind of a heartbreaker,” Shannon says, adding that it’s impossible to predict when the store might return to the IMU. “But the key thing for us is seeing the way everyone pitched in when we needed a hand.”

"Neighbor helping neighbor"

UI alumnus, Iowa City resident, and Wall Street Journal editor-at-large Michael Judge published a column about the eastern Iowa floods in the Journal's June 17 edition. He wrote:

"Even as we mourn, we prepare for the flood's aftermath and continue to salvage what we can. Among the thousands of stories of neighbor helping neighbor, volunteers sandbagging night and day to protect property that belongs to others, perhaps the most inspiring was the effort made to save the University of Iowa and its classrooms, libraries and museums.

Last week and through the weekend, hundreds of volunteers gathered on campus to reinforce the in some places 10-feet high sandbag walls erected to hold back the Iowa River. Students, teachers and townspeople formed a human chain to relay books from the basement and lower floors of the UI Main Library to higher floors, moving thousands of titles, one-of-a-kind dissertations and rare books out of harm's way."

“The visceral, physical effort of saving books"

Teresa Mangum, associate professor of English, joined colleagues in moving library materials out of harm's way:

"As a member of the English Department, I was not surprised to find many of my colleagues—both faculty members and graduate students—in the UI Library 'book brigade.' In my line alone, I saw Mike Chaucer, Corey Creekmur, Eric Gidal, Loren Glass, Rob Latham, Laura Rigal, and Phil Round. Many of us had been working in the sandbagging lines during the week, but I suspect we felt especially grateful for the visceral, physical effort of saving books—the words, ideas, conversations, and knowledge at the heart of university life that we treasure deeply.

Being reminded that we share those values with the hundreds of students, staff, community members, and faculty from across the University who showed up to volunteer at the library was a heartening gift during a tough week. But we are, after all, ourselves—English professors. To great general amusement, everytime a lull fell, most of the book brigade grabbed snacks or bottles of water. Not the members of the English department. Given two minutes to rest, we opened whatever books we found in our hands...and started reading. Heartfelt thanks to the library staff members for your efforts and for letting us play a small part in preserving our library."

Arts campus slideshow

Eric Dean, director of the Office of Visual Materials for the School of Art and Art History, has documented flood preparations and evolving conditions around the Art Building West. You'll find his slideshow here.

At the Main Library, saving UI history

As the Iowa River began its creep toward the UI Main Library, volunteers scrambled to rescue irreplaceable pieces of University history—bound copies of The Daily Iowan, the late James Van Allen’s papers, records from the Iowa Writers Workshop, even a collection of vintage Hawkeye game films.

“It brought to mind the 1966 flood in Florence, Italy, when it seemed like half the country turned out to save the city’s cultural treasures,” says David McCartney, University archivist. “It was very moving to see this remarkable community support.”

Library staff had been watching the waters since Monday, June 9, when arts facilities upriver—including libraries at the School of Music and School of Art and Art History—began to be evacuated. By midweek, flood predictions had grown graver than anyone anticipated, threatening University Archives and Special Collections material housed in the Main Library’s basement storage space.

At first, library staff cleared the lowest foot and a half of basement shelves. But on Friday morning, Nancy Kraft, head of preservation for the University Libraries, advised McCartney and colleagues—including Sid Huttner and Greg Prickman, head and assistant head, respectively, of Special Collections—to prepare for water levels of up to five feet.

“It was a very short meeting,” McCartney says. “I recall Nancy saying, ‘Let’s hope this will be a very elaborate drill.’”

Immediately, the Libraries put out a call for volunteers. They came by the dozen.

Chains of students, faculty, staff, and friends snaked through the stairwells, passing delicate documents hand-to-hand, piece-by-piece, to higher ground. Meanwhile, teams shuttled carts loaded with boxes and cartons up freight elevators. By early evening, they had cleared as much as 10,000 feet of shelf space.

For now, both the Main Library building and the resources within have escaped serious damage. Other facilities haven’t been so fortunate.

“With any disaster, there’s the trauma of the moment and the trauma that follows,” McCartney says. “As we start recovering, we have a collective responsibility to help our colleagues across campus however we can.”

"Writing from the Hillcrest Courtyard"

Graduate student Marta Holliday and other residents of Hawkeye Court apartments evacuated as the flood loomed. She wrote the following poem from her temporary home at Hillcrest Residence Hall:

Writing in the Hillcrest Courtyard
I come, prepared with my notebooks,
To the stone bench post thunderstorm
To write a story like I have been meaning to remember it.
And I take it in—
How normal we are.
We.
Who come into unexpectedness 48 hours ago,
Running between the U Hauls and the emptying apartments.
We.
Who salvage our food and baby formula,
Our photographs and our king mattresses,
To be transformed into an unlikely collaboration
Amid lofted beds and community showers.
I marvel—
Tonight, parents walk their kids outside to play and scream. While grandmothers
In saris stroll.
We do laundry or read. We eat chocolate cookie Twix
As we curl on the obtuse angle lounge chairs.
And walk unashamed—
In robes to the bathrooms.
I am surprised at the handshakes of faces I never stopped
To recognize before, in the normative isolation of the one bedroom apartment.
The commiserated smiles and first names exchanged.
I recognize faces from the bus during the school year, who tonight
Eat cafeteria macaroni and cheese,
And all the while we marvel at
How perversely beautiful the river seems right now,
Even as it erodes trees,
And lakes metastazsize
Where the English parking lot should be.
It is a surreal weekend of camping, and making friends
While outside rainbows burst from the thunderstorms.

Among the sandbaggers, a shared purpose

One shoveled, another held the bag. A third twisted and tied, then hefted it down the line. When one of them tired, a replacement stepped in with barely a word.

Countless volunteers turned out to fill sandbags and build levees along the Iowa River and around University of Iowa buildings threatened by the 2008 flood—an unprecedented campus effort that surprised even the sandbaggers themselves.

“I saw faculty I know, older folks, little kids who’d run to the top of the pile and push sand down to the shovels,” says Tricia Seifert, a postdoctoral research scholar at the Center for Research on Undergraduate Education. “We were all in it together.”

Sandbagging began the week of June 2, once it became clear that the University’s arts campus was in jeopardy. As the days progressed and the threat swelled, operations picked up speed and stretched downriver. By June 11, a hoard of volunteers had gathered outside the Iowa Memorial Union, building a wall that grew taller and deeper as the waters continued to rise.

On June 13, Seifert answered a call to help move at-risk materials in the Main Library, but joined the sandbagging crews outside instead. Like colleagues from the College of Education, she didn’t expect that floodwaters could stretch all the way to the Lindquist Center, home to the college and important information technology facilities.

Yet the next morning, she and the hundreds of volunteers who returned to Madison Street found themselves preparing for the unthinkable. The threat of thunderstorms late that afternoon put a halt to their work, but by then they’d barricaded Lindquist and other nearby buildings.

That night, word came down—the University had completed its levees and was preparing to wait out the flood. Volunteers had also managed to fill some 250,000 surplus sandbags for transport to other communities.

“I met a guy from Cedar Rapids, which had already flooded. He told me, ‘I just need to help,’” Seifert says. “I think that kind of spirit is what brought us all together.”

"What an amazing sense of community!"

Tim Paschkewitz, a UI graduate student in chemistry, was among the thousands of volunteers who turned out to protect the campus:

"On one sandbagging occasion Saturday (June 14) morning, I had the pleasure of meeting people from many areas around eastern Iowa—Solon, Iowa City, Coralville, Williamsburg, North Liberty, and Riverside. I was just taken aback at how when the cities or University needed help, people came...In a dire situation, the volunteers were cheerfully giving their best. I met up with many students and staff members between the Library and Adler and it didn’t matter where they work, what program they were in…everyone was determined to prevent complete devastation of University buildings along the river.

It could have been easy for the volunteers to be cynical and sarcastic regarding our efforts, but I never heard such a remark even once. Even after we were told to leave on Saturday due to approaching thunderstorms, you could see it in people’s faces…they wanted to keep going. I have never been so proud to be a transplanted Iowan in all my life as I was this past week watching and working with people from all over Eastern Iowa scramble wither utter determination to save Iowa City, Coralville, and the University. What an amazing sense of community!"