ZacFields
06-14-2008, 10:29 PM
Flood waters should be gone from most of downtown by early Tuesday barring any more serious rain between now and then. Clean-up for most areas of downtown will begin around that time.
I strongly urge anyone who doesn't have anything going on to drive out there and park in any parking garage (I doubt they'll be charging), bring some leather gloves and some waterproof boots along with some comfortable clothes, and then just walk around downtown and offer your help to anyone who wants it.
Some things that may be happening are:
-Removal of sandbags from around doors of buildings
-Loading of sandbags onto trucks to be disposed of
-Clean up of streets and sidewalks (picking up broken glass, trash, dead fish, etc)
-Removing of ruined equipment and other trash from inside buildings
These are just a few small examples of things that will be happening this week that one could volunteer for. The possibilities are endless.
Please do NOT Come to downtown Cedar Rapids simply to take pictures: For every picture you take personally, there will be 50 almost identical pictures floating around on the internet within a week. I know it feels good to be the person that takes the pictures (believe me, I've taken many myself) but unneeded traffic during these clean-up operations needs to be limited. It amazed me on Wednesday how many people were coming IN to an area that was under mandatory evacuation just to drive around and look/take pictures while everyone was running around trying to prepare for the flood.
-ABOVE ALL, REMEMBER THAT THE MORE FREE MAN-HOURS PUT INTO CLEAN-UP, THE FASTER WE CAN GET OUR CITY BACK TOGETHER AND GET BUSINESSES AND RESIDENCES BACK IN OPERATION ONCE AGAIN!
* Please keep in mind that the businesses in Downtown CR are not the only places affected by the floods. Don't be afraid to span out to residential areas such as the czech village area to offer your help there.
* For those who don't believe they will have anything to do, I will talk to the owner of my work and may make another post calling for volunteers to help us out. Stay tuned.
I strongly urge anyone who doesn't have anything going on to drive out there and park in any parking garage (I doubt they'll be charging), bring some leather gloves and some waterproof boots along with some comfortable clothes, and then just walk around downtown and offer your help to anyone who wants it.
Some things that may be happening are:
-Removal of sandbags from around doors of buildings
-Loading of sandbags onto trucks to be disposed of
-Clean up of streets and sidewalks (picking up broken glass, trash, dead fish, etc)
-Removing of ruined equipment and other trash from inside buildings
These are just a few small examples of things that will be happening this week that one could volunteer for. The possibilities are endless.
Please do NOT Come to downtown Cedar Rapids simply to take pictures: For every picture you take personally, there will be 50 almost identical pictures floating around on the internet within a week. I know it feels good to be the person that takes the pictures (believe me, I've taken many myself) but unneeded traffic during these clean-up operations needs to be limited. It amazed me on Wednesday how many people were coming IN to an area that was under mandatory evacuation just to drive around and look/take pictures while everyone was running around trying to prepare for the flood.
-ABOVE ALL, REMEMBER THAT THE MORE FREE MAN-HOURS PUT INTO CLEAN-UP, THE FASTER WE CAN GET OUR CITY BACK TOGETHER AND GET BUSINESSES AND RESIDENCES BACK IN OPERATION ONCE AGAIN!
* Please keep in mind that the businesses in Downtown CR are not the only places affected by the floods. Don't be afraid to span out to residential areas such as the czech village area to offer your help there.
* For those who don't believe they will have anything to do, I will talk to the owner of my work and may make another post calling for volunteers to help us out. Stay tuned.