2010 Flood update

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Just a little update on the flood here. Found out there were actually 8 different water main breaks. We're not supposed to drink the water and to boil it before we do anything where it will come in contact with mouths. We're supposed to use toilets very infrequently. I was informed tonight that we may not have water until sometime next week. I'm well stocked with bottled water at the moment.
The Skunk River crested sometime in between 6 and 7 tonight at 26 feet in south Ames, and 18 feet in north ames. The University is closed tomorrow due to the water problems.
My house isn't affected except for a little wetness in the basement, I live in the high part of town and have access to grocery stores and a walmart, so pretty much anything I need (except running water at the moment) I can get, unfortunately I'm also kinda on an island. I did find out at least one street going north is open, so that's good.
I would really appreciate any prayers and good thoughts to clean up the city and of course get the water running again.

Thanks all.

2010 Flood

AMES IS FLOODED!!!
EDIT: I just learned that a water main broke this morning, and we are now informed we must boil our water before drinking it, I'd love any thoughts and prayers to get the water main back up and working.
I was woken up at 5AM by the automated city system calling to warn about flooding, didn't think anything of it, since I live in the high part of town. Kevin came by about 8AM saying he couldn't get home because of streets flooded, go here for a map of what's closed. We went out to view streets being closed, here's a couple pictures I took:

This one is at a University housing complex, you can see a fire hydrant there and a dumpster, as well as a car.
Here's a close-up of the car, and not a very old looking one.

Another picture of the water at the housing complex, from what we could see, it looked like the row of houses closest to the water got about 1.5 to 2 feet flooded, but by the time we were there, it had gone down enough that they weren't being flooded.

This is a view looking south to our Target store.

A closer look of the Target, see how the corn stalks are just peaking out over the water on the left side of the picture.

This is a close-up of a piece of art of a person waving, I figure he's about 5.5 to 6 ft tall, and the water's up to his armpit. If you happened to be able to look south a little further behind the edge of the picture, you would see our newer Super Walmart also flooded. Go here to read a story about the flooding, in our local paper.

Here's a view a little farther north but more east of the Target building, closer to the South Skunk River, last I heard at about 1pm it had not crested (reached it's highest point). Go here, and here to see levels of the Skunk in parts of town, and here to see the level of the Squaw River.
The first link is Hwy 30 and the Skunk, which is the south end of town, the second one is Riverside and the Skunk which is the north end of town and the Squaw is about the middle of town. Lincolnway, is the old Lincoln Hwy, what people used before the new highway 30.

On the other side of this tree line is the Skunk River, you can't quite see how deep it is, because this is a pretty low spot, but if you kept going past the right side of the picture, eventually you'd run into the Target store.

Go here to see a video of how flooded Hilton Coliseum is. This is where I work for basketball season, I am happy to see that it hadn't reached the new seats they put in about a year or so ago, but the floor is ruined. If the basketball hoops were in there, they'd be about the level of the red seats you can see, so that gives you an estimate on heighth.

And here is a link to the Tribune's facebook page with pictures looking east on Lincoln way and around the coliseum and the football field. That's the west end of town where the photographer is located.

I remember back in 1993, when we had a big flood, that was a 500 year flood, this one's worse. I remember sandbagging, I don't remember much else, but I do know it will take us awhile to get over this one. Here's hoping the water will fall fast. They are predicting rainfall tomorrow night, but under an inch, as well as under two inches Friday night.

Our house isn't damaged, the basement is a little wet, but like I said before we live in the high part of town, and it would take quite a bit of water to get to us. I am very happy for living in this part of town.

Hasn't stopped raining for days

So, it's been a little wet here. Yesterday it pretty much poured from 11am to 3pm, I heard we got over 4 inches. The river here crested at 26.8 feet, flood stage is 20 feet, the creek crested at 15.85 feet, flood stage is 9.0 feet. So we got floods. People are saying in some parts of town it's worse than '93, that was considered a 500 year flood (pretty rare).
A couple pictures for y'all:
This is one of our main intersections on S. Duff, at S. 4th st looking east at the Target store.
This one is on S. Duff looking south by Old George's Pizza (used to be Gregory's), S. 3rd which the bowling alley and the Boys and Girls Club is on is behind the Pizza Hut. Here's a look at a sign in one of our parks, by s. 4th and University Blvd (used to be Elwood)
Apparently someone parked their car in Brookside before it started to flood. I have a picture that's a close up of the car, the driver's side window is smashed (most likely with the piece of road sitting on top of the car), inside the car, the water is up to the dash.
This is a picture of US 30 looking east after the water had gone down a bit. I heard around 1pm they had closed it from the east side of town to the west side of town.