Rock Bluff Road residents still waiting for water to go down

By MATT MILNER Courier staff writer

June 24, 2008 12:50 am

— OTTUMWA — Ken Campbell stood with his wife, Sherry, at the very edge of the gravel on Rock Bluff Road, looking out across the water with a pair of binoculars. It’s as close to their home as the couple has come since the flooding began more than a week ago.
Floods forced them out in 1993. They rebuilt and made sure the house was higher. That helped this time. The two feet of water that got inside probably won’t force them to tear everything down and start from scratch the way they did 15 years ago.
“We lost the fencing around the bottom, the latticework. But other than that it’s all carpet in there, probably all ruined,” Ken said. “This is not as bad as in 1993.”
They had plenty of warning this time. And they remembered what happened last time. Experience told them to get out with as much as they could. The Campbells managed to get most of their belongings out of the house before the water arrived.
The couple took turns swapping the binoculars back and forth, scrutinizing the walls for the telltale mud line that shows how high water went. Their home is most of the way out of the river now.
The Campbells tried to get down the road earlier, but the water was too high. It wasn’t possible to get at an angle where they could see the greenhouse they built after the last floods. Now they can look, but there’s still water 6 feet deep and 150 yards wide between them and home.
So they stood on the last bit of almost dry road and watched as the water flowed by. It lapped at the ground near their feet as it drained back toward the river. Minnows swam over the gravel. Cornstalks tangled around a line of mailboxes near where the Campbells parked their truck, testimony to how high and how fast the water had been.
They left after 10 minutes. They saw what they wanted to.
A handful of buildings adjacent to the Campbell home are still submerged. The owners built them at ground level instead of putting them on stilts. Some have water halfway up the walls. That’s an improvement — it was two-thirds of the way to the roof.
Signs peek out of the water to warn drivers of children in the area. But it’s still and eerily quiet. Only the chirping of birds or the occasional loud splash of a deer crossing the flooded road break the silence.
Things are quiet by the maroon Taurus abandoned by Rock Bluff Park, too. The passenger side door hangs open and only the front windshield remains intact. Someone looted the car, taking the radio and CD player.
The nearby road is emerging from the water. The river scoured away some gravel, but it’s impossible to tell how bad the damage is until the last of the water leaves.
It’s much the same scene on Rabbit Run Road. A layer of fine, powdery silt marks the high-water line on the roadway. Several of the trailers are above water now, even if the yards aren’t.
Little damage is evident from outside the homes. But there are signs: a piece of siding wrapped around a mailbox, grass hanging from a power line.
In Ottumwa, the river is back below the deck on the Market Street Bridge. It’s officially at 17 feet, the level at which the bridge is closed when flooding starts. Opening it up is not as simple as closing was.
An inspection comes first, and Public Information Coordinator Tom Rodgers isn’t sure when that will happen. There are a lot of bridges that were under water, and some of them are surely on the list ahead of Market Street.
“I think that’s going to depend on the schedule the river sets,” Rodgers said. “I don’t know if there’s an actual calendar date or not.”
Forecasters think the water will keep falling over the next week. It should drop below the 15-foot major flood stage on Friday.
Matt Milner can be reached at (641) 683-5359 or via e-mail at mwmilner@mchsi.com

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