Tuesday, July 08, 2008

: Homeless in Cedar Rapids :

Courageous citizens of the MidWest that they are, my little sis and her friend used a couple of vacation days to help with flood recovery in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Even though I don't have a job I refused to go. They ended up abducting me and bringing me with them anyway, so I figured I would take a couple photos. . . .

As you can see, Tina has a shiner and is wearing her most forlorn expression. She got the black eye when she crashed her bike recently, the sad face is a sign of solidarity for all of the Iowans who have had their homes ruined. This photo was taken in the ladies' room at the makeshift animal shelter where we were helping to care for the homeless pets. We were packed in there with about 20 other volunteers because -- as we were petting cats and changing their cages -- the tornado sirens started going off. Lucky for us (and any future volunteer career I may pursue) it didn't blow us or our car away.

This is near downtown, where you can see standing water, trash everywhere, street signs pushed sideways and general post-flood nastiness.

Here is an attempt to pump the watery mess out of a downtown building.



This is the house we gutted. All this family's belongings, appliances, and even the interior walls had to go.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

sucky. that's a lot of stuff to throw out