Flooding in Decorah

Many of you have heard about the flooding in the Midwest. Decorah is apparently dealing with quite a bit of flooding this year and College Drive bridge was actually closed the other day because of the threat that it might go under water. Here is a picture taken of College Drive the other day. Below that are two videos of Rachel, Lincoln, and I tubing down the Upper Iowa River under College Drive bridge. You can see in the video how low the river usually is (and how far below the bridge it usually is). That's the part of the river that has any sort of "serious" rapids on our tubing route. And yes, for those of you who white water raft, they are not really serious rapids but when you're in a tube, tied to a cooler full of beer and your companions, they're serious enough. Rapids mean rocks right under the water and you never get past that part without bruises on your butt. If you look closely you can see how narrow the river usually is in comparison to the bridge. You can also see the top of the dike which holds the water back and how far below that the water normally is. On the first video, coming up to the bridge, you can see a bunch of grass to the side of the river. Usually, when you get out of the river at that location, you have to cross that grassy plain and then climb up the dike. In the second video, of us going under the bridge, you can see the rocky top of the dike. From what I hear the river is finally receding. Hopefully everything will be okay in Decorah and not a lot of serious damage was done.