A narration by Roger Hadley:
Everyone affected by the Epic Flood of 2008 has a story so here is mine:
The flood water started coming up through the manholes in the streets a couple blocks from The Warehouse on Wednesday, June 11th, 2008. I contracted an engineering firm to do a GPS survey to determine the approximate level of flood water anticipated to reach the building. They determined that from the predicted crest there would be about 1' of water above my city sidewalk and that the Cedar River would crest sometime Friday. Based on that information I spent Wednesday afternoon with my tenants running the elevators and moving valuables out of the lower level (basement) to the main floor of the building. In the middle of the night I felt compelled to drive back down to The Warehouse to check on the water level. At 3:00 a.m. in the morning the water had already began to cover my parking lot.
I KNEW I WAS IN BIG TROUBLE!
I got back down to The Warehouse about 8:00 a.m. Thursday morning and the water level was 18" above my parking lot, about 15" above the city sidewalk. I threw down my jon boat stored on the loading dock and rowed over to the Pepsi parking lot to pick up two of my tenants. I helped them move valuables from the main floor to the upper floor. By noon we had to leave because the water was nearly ready to come into the floor of the loading dock (main floor level). By afternoon I could not get into the building and the Naional Guard had blocked anyone from getting into downtown. So it became a waiting game.
By Friday morning I had 15' of flood water in The Warehouse.
THE FLOOD CREST PREDICTION WAS OFF BY EIGHT FEET (8').!!
