by admin | Dec 26, 2024 | Careers, Climate, Disaster, Disaster Recovery, Education, Floodplain management, Hazard Mitigation, History, Iowa, Natural Hazards, Personal history, Public policy, Resilience, Retirement, Texas, Urban Planning, Weather
About the time the rising Cedar River crested in downtown Cedar Rapids, Iowa, on June 13, 2008, a torrential downpour from an incoming thunderstorm joined forces with it to create the perfect flood. In the previous flood of record in the city, the river had reached 20...
by admin | Nov 4, 2024 | Climate, Coastal Management, Disaster, Emergency Management, Floodplain management, Florida, Geography, Hurricanes, Natural Hazards, Resilience, Weather
Barrier islands serve a purpose in nature’s scheme, offering a barrier of sorts to the movement of storm surge and high tides to the continental mainland. In both the Southeastern U.S. and the Texas Gulf Coast, such islands abound, but we have often ignored the power...
by admin | Oct 18, 2023 | Climate, Disaster, Disaster policy, Disaster Recovery, Emergency Management, Floodplain management, Floodplain management, Government, Hazard Mitigation, History, Iowa, Natural Hazards, Public safety, Resilience, Urban Planning, Weather
In the latter half of June 2008, it was hard to imagine Cedar Rapids as the city it had been just one month earlier. A massive flood along the Cedar River clobbered the city with a classic double whammy: About the time existing flood crests that had already swamped...
by admin | Sep 26, 2023 | Climate, Disaster, Floodplain management, Hazard Mitigation, History, Iowa, Movies, Natural Hazards
In 2008, much of Iowa experienced such massive floods that 10 percent of Cedar Rapids was evacuated, books were being rescued from the basement of the University of Iowa Library, and homes were under water in Cedar Falls. Dozens of other Iowa communities faced flood...
by admin | Sep 6, 2023 | Blogging, Colorado, Disaster, Disaster Recovery, Drought, Emergency Management, Floodplain management, Government, Hazard Mitigation, Infrastructure, Natural Hazards, Resilience, Urban Planning, Wildfire
Ten years ago this month, Colorado faced a crisis. Following previous years of drought and wildfires, Rocky Mountain monsoon rains dumped a year’s worth of precipitation on the Front Range in a single day. Water poured down mountainsides that were sometimes so parched...
by admin | Aug 29, 2023 | Climate, Coastal Management, Colorado, Disaster, Disaster policy, Emergency Management, Floodplain management, Hazard Mitigation, Movies, Natural Hazards, Resilience, Social Science, Urban Planning, Wildfire
As previous installments of our blog video series have indicated, the production team for Planning to Turn the Tide spent a great deal of time in June and July first in Florida, then on a two-week road trip to Colorado and Iowa from Chicago to capture additional...