Several days of toil go for naught in Iowa town

The little town of Columbus Junction put up a good fight against the Flood of 2008. But, in the end, the water won.

Or that's how it looks downtown, where the senior center, the medical center, the pharmacy, the water plant and a few dozen other businesses were under about 10 feet of water Sunday after the Iowa River burst through three levees Saturday evening.

But ask around and residents tell a different story.

Mayor Dan Wilson said good things emerged along with the water. "The community spirit has been phenomenal," said Wilson. "It broke my heart to tell people we had to stop filling sandbags and we were probably going to lose the battle."

Residents and volunteers from the surrounding area began working Tuesday to reinforce earthen levees with sand and sandbags, hoping the little town downstream from Cedar Rapids and Iowa City could survive the deluge that hit those bigger cities up north.

"I think we filled close to 100,000 sandbags in four days," Wilson said. "We had four to five days of working around the clock, and we thought we were OK."

Connie Lewis, 78, who has lived in Columbus Junction for 40 years, said she's sorry about the businesses that were lost, and feels for the people who own them. But she also said the flood preparation work brought the town together.

"We have always wondered who was going to help this town, you know, down the road, who's going to be able to take the reins in the future," she said.

Then the young people turned out to sandbag and they turned out to vacuum the floors when it was time to get the Methodist church turned into a shelter.

"And now we know we are going to be OK," she said. "It was such a good cementing experience. Children of all colors were helping. You find out when you need them they step up to the plate."

Brian Kirschling came down from Iowa City to help his father, Rich Kirschling, evacuate 37 elderly residents from the Colonial Manor residential care facility on Sunday.

He said the residents had to move because the town didn't have water and it could be a week or more before water was restored. They were being taken in by a care facility in nearby Washington, which has a spare wing.

Bottled drinking water was being shipped in for Columbus Junction residents, and the Iowa National Guard was hauling water trucks in for bathing and washing. But Kirschling said that was not enough for Colonial Manor.

"They need water for dressings and bathing, and they need their medicine," he said. "It's stressful."

More water was on its way from upstream, but Wilson said it would just have to go where it wanted, meaning the downtown businesses were likely to take at least another foot or two of water into Monday.

But the sandbagging was over, and the work ahead was dealing with the water shortage and waiting for the cleanup.

And dealing with the disappointment of losing another round to the river.

"Up until the last minute, I had to go down personally and pull people off the levees that were still trying to sandbag," Wilson said. "And I had to tell people who were trying to fill some sandbags and tell them to stop, and they didn't want to stop."