"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."