Photos: The Flood of 2008 Remembered

The Cedar River rises around City Hall and May's Island on June 12, 2008, the day before the river crested in the worst flood in the history of Cedar Rapids. (Liz Martin/The Gazette)

People watch as houseboats in the Ellis Park Harbor are tipped from their moorings by the rising flood waters of the Cedar River on Thursday, June 12, 2008, in Cedar Rapids. (Jim Slosiarek/The Gazette)

Water inundates the University of Iowa Museum of Art on the UI campus June 15, 2008, in Iowa City. Museum officials had five days to move the collection to safety, from June 9 to 13, 2008. After 14 years without a permanent home, the new UI Stanley Museum of Art, built on higher ground with flood mitigation measures in place, will open with a three-day celebration Aug. 26 to 28, 2022. (The Gazette)

Water stands in the front rows of Hancher Auditorium on June 19, 2008, as Elson Byler, from the University of Iowa, leads a media tour of flood damage. (The Gazette)

Since the 2008 flood badly damaged the University of Iowa's art museum, many pieces of the UI's massive art collection were sent on the road. One of its most famous pieces 'Mural,' by Jackson Pollock, went in 2009 to the Figge Art Museum in Davenport, where workers are shown moving it. 'Mural' traveled around the world afterward before finally arriving home again in Iowa. (The Gazette)

Photo courtesy of Iowa Department of Transportation This photo shows a road destroyed by flooding during the 2008 flood of the Cedar River near Atalissa in Muscatine County. Climate change figures to increase spring precipitation, leading to more floods.

Church Administrator Jim Douglass (left) and Board Member Steve Kohli (right) make their way out of Parkview Evangelical Free Church in Iowa City after inspecting flood damage, opening doors and windows after the evacuation order barring them from entering was lifted on Friday, June 20, 2008. (Jonathan D. Woods/The Gazette)

Henry Davison talks on the phone in front of his flood-damaged HD Youth Center along Third Street SE on Thursday, June 19, 2008, in southeast Cedar Rapids. Davison had a list of volunteers who would be coming to help clear the center of damaged items and begin cleaning. (Jim Slosiarek/The Gazette)

The Paramount Theatre's front doors are left lying in the lobby on Tuesday, June 17, 2008, after they were knocked down by the floodwaters that began rising June 11 and crested at more than 31 feet on June 13. The theater, home to Orchestra Iowa, reopened Nov. 3, 2012, with a gala concert featuring Harry Connick Jr., his big band, and more than 30 Orchestra Iowa musicians. When flooding again was predicted in September 2016, staff and volunteers removed moved nearly everything from the basement, main floor and stage area as a precaution. Fortunately, the building didn’t take on any water. (The Gazette)

The Wurlitzer theater organ at the Paramount Theatre in downtown Cedar Rapids overturned after the 2008 flood. The orchestra pit cover was lifted partially onto the stage, which buckled in the flood, and mud cakes the stage of the theater on. (Liz Martin/The Gazette)

The flood-damaged Sutliff Bridge over the Cedar River in Sutliff. Part of the historic bridge collapsed in June 2008 from the flooding Cedar River. (Jim Slosiarek/The Gazette)

Flood debris remains on and around the twisted metal of the span of the Sutliif Bridge in October 2008. The bridge on the Cedar River collapsed June 13, 2008, during flooding. (Jim Slosiarek/The Gazette)

Floodwaters inundate the University of Iowa campus on June 16, 2008. (The Gazette)

Looking down 2nd Ave towards the Federal Court House and May's Island after the flood in downtown Cedar Rapids on Sunday, June 15, 2008. (Steve Gravelle/The Gazette)

Dock houses returned to Ellis Harbor after most were swept downstream in the flood of 2008. (Liz Martin/The Gazette)

Flood waters cover Dubuque Street near the Park Road bridge in Iowa City Tuesday, June 10, 2008. (Brian Ray/The Gazette)

This photo shows West Side Sewing and the Oreck Clean Home Center, at 416 First St. SW and 418 First St. SW, as they appeared June 13, 2008, during the devastating flood in Cedar Rapids. The flood caused $1 million in damage to the two businesses, owned by the Axline family. (photo courtesy of West Side Sewing).

The National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library is surrounded by flood water from the Cedar River as seen Thursday, June 12, 2008 from the air. (Perry Walton/P&N Air)

Marine One flies over flooded areas of Coralville on June 19, 2008, as President George W. Bush surveys flood damage in Iowa. (Liz Martin/The Gazette)

Cedar Rapids Public Library in downtown SE Cedar Rapids with flood waters during the flood of June 2008. (Cedar Rapids Public Library)

Friday, June 13th, 2008. As the flood crests, national media, including The Weather Channel, report from locations such as this on Second Avenue SE near the railroad tracks in Cedar Rapids. Former Dragon Chinese restaurant building at 329 Second Avenue SE in the background. (Photo by Mark Stoffer Hunter/The History Center)

Before and after photo of the NewBo market area. During the flood 2008, and after the recovery in 2018.

Former Gazette senior photographer and photo editor Liz Martin captured poignant moments as floodwaters from the Cedar River threatened homes. In this photo, Sheila Goad, left, is comforted by her sister, Deb Bute of Cedar Rapids, after one of Goad's pets was found dead in her Time Check home in northwest Cedar Rapids on June 20, 2008. Goad and another sister, Shawn Crippen, lived in the home and left behind five pets in the mandatory flood evacuation.(Liz Martin/The Gazette)

Norman Meister of Cedar Rapids and his son, Britt Meister, put an antique dresser into the trash pile Sunday, June 15, 2008. Britt Meister's home at 393 E. Third St. in Vinton was heavily damaged by last week's flood. (Angela Holmes/The Gazette)

Volunteer Candace Chihak (left) of Lisbon breaks through the wall of Gloria Ruzicka's kitchen as other volunteers help to remove the flood damaged drywall in southwest Cedar Rapids on Saturday, June 28, 2008. (Courtney Sargent/The Gazette)

Linda Seger walks through her flood damaged home on 8th Street NW in Cedar Rapids in this August 2008 file photo. (Cliff Jette/The Gazette)

Construction crews dismantle the remains of the old Roundhouse in Czech Village. The historic building was damaged during the flood of 2008. (Spencer Willems/The Gazette)

Stools (four-legged) piled outside the Piano Lounge after the 2008 Flood. (Gazette photo/Liz Martin)

Sunflowers grow in the flood damaged Time Check neighborhood in northwest Cedar Rapids on Thursday, Aug. 21, 2008. (Amanda LaRae Larkin/The Gazette)

Diane Stanek (right) clutches the arm of her father, Vince Fiala, as he expresses his frustrations June 15, 2008, about being unable to access his home in southwest Cedar Rapids. The photo became a national symbol of the anguish felt by thousands of his fellow flood victims. Fiala spent weeks rebuilding the three homes he owned in the flood zone, saying he and his wife, Barb, never considered moving.

AmeriCorps VISTA workers clear out a flood damaged home in July 2008.

Debris ransacked by floodwaters is piled higher than most vehicles along Thompson Dr. in Palo as flood recovery efforts continued on Friday, June 27, 2008. (Jonathan D. Woods/The Gazette)

In July 2008, a month after the flood, home appliances ruined by the flood in Palo are piled in a temporary dump off Shellsburg Road near Blairs Ferry Road. (The Gazette)

Flood water residue streaks the inside of McKinnon's Barber Shop on Ellis Boulevard and O Avenue in northwest Cedar Rapids on Tuesday, June 17, 2008. (Courtney Sargent/The Gazette)

FILE PHOTO - Flood water from the swollen Cedar River surround the Quaker Oats buildings in Cedar Rapids, Iowa Thursday June 12, 2008. (AP Photo/Steve Pope)

The sign at the Cedar Rapids Quaker Oats plant was back on, less than a week after the 2008 flood in Cedar Rapids. The plant reopened within three weeks of the flood. Fifty-one of the company's 1,100 employees in Cedar Rapids had significant damage to their homes. Quaker employees, Quaker and PepsiCo donated $750,000 to community flood relief efforts, and the plant has a monument commemorating the employees who worked tirelessly to reopen the largest cereal mill in the world so quickly. (Liz Martin/The Gazette)

The A&W drive-in in northwest Cedar Rapids' Time Check neighborhood was badly damaged in the 2008 flood, and has not reopened. Photographed on Tuesday, June 4, 2013. (Liz Martin/The Gazette)

Many homes in the Time Check neighborhood in northwest Cedar Rapids were damaged in the 2008 flood and were demolished afterward. Photographed was on Monday, May 6, 2013. (Liz Martin/The Gazette)

Gazette archives Damage from the 2008 flood was still apparent in 2010 around the base of the Tree of Five Seasons along the Cedar River.

Pastor Carol Sundberg of Trinity-St. James Methodist Church gives closing remarks Wednesday as people gather with flowers around the West Side Rising memorial sculpture for its dedication in Cedar Rapids. The sculpture symbolizes homes that were rebuilt — and those that were lost — in the devastating 2008 flood. (Liz Martin/The Gazette)

Celebration Park sits on the bank of the Cedar River in Vinton, Iowa, on Saturday, June 2, 2018. The park was erected following the flood of 2008 to honor to businesses that were lost and provide a versatile public space for the community. (Hannah Schroeder/The Gazette)