In Iowa: Grit and grace of Iowans made reporter’s job easier

News being by definition mostly bad, 2008 stands out in the memory of an Eastern Iowa journalist looking back, on the first day of semiretirement, at a quarter century's work.

With the world economy collapsing around victims of crooked bankers considered too well-connected to fail, the year turned even uglier in Eastern Iowa on May 12 when fleets of black choppers and sport utility vehicles converged on the Agriprocessors kosher meat processing plant in Postville, executing the then-largest immigration raid in U.S. history.

Just 13 days later, with the enormity of the man-made Postville disaster not yet fully understood, more bad news broke 90 miles to the southwest, where a Memorial Day EF5 tornado obliterated half of Parkersburg and New Hartford and killed eight of their residents.

On the way to Parkersburg the next morning, I caught my first glimpse of the dislocation when I stopped for coffee at a Dike convenience store from which extended a line of suddenly homeless people waiting to use of the store's restrooms.

While church groups and other volunteers helped clear debris in Parkersburg and minister to the sundered families of the nearly 400 immigrant workers arrested in Postville, dark clouds began bursting over the state, and rain started falling faster than the stock market.

From June 4 to 13, rain fell every day but one on the Cedar, Iowa and Wapsipinicon watersheds, and the National Weather Service kept revising its crest projections upward.

On June 7, the National Weather Service posted a risk of major flooding (above 16 feet) on the Cedar River at Cedar Rapids. On June 8, it predicted a crest topping the 20-foot record. On June 12, as a predicted 24.9 foot crest hurtled toward Cedar Rapids, an additional 5 inches of rain fell on parts of the watershed.

On June 13, the flash flood on top of the prolonged flood swelled the Cedar off the charts to an unfathomable 31.12 feet - more than 50 percent higher than the previous record crest. With a flow rate of 140,000 cubic feet per second - nearly twice that of the prior record - it took slightly less than 1 second for a million gallons of polluted water to pass a specific point within the city.

While most acute in Cedar Rapids, the destruction caused by the 2008 floods was rampant throughout Eastern Iowa. Nine Iowa rivers recorded record crests.

In a little more than a month, the Postville raid, the Memorial Day tornado and the June floods generated more and bigger news than many Iowa journalists get to cover in a career.

My experience covering them, while providing a measure of satisfaction at performing useful and important work, also greatly enhanced my already high opinion of my fellow Iowans.

Day after day, the people I talked with were either volunteers helping others in a time of desperate need or the victims themselves, many of whom were having the worst days of their lives.

Uniformly they responded to what could have easily been considered intrusive questions with grace and dignity and at times even warmth and appreciation.

Thanks, Iowans, for making my job easier and more enjoyable.

l Comments: (319) 934-3172; orlan.love@thegazette.com