Watery memories

Now that I'm back from my weeklong siesta in the Dominican Republic and have unlimited access to the Internet, I'm trying to get caught up on all the news I missed while I was gone. Not surprisingly, I keep being drawn back to the Web site of the Cedar Rapids Gazette and its coverage of the massive flooding that consumed my hometown last week.

I had heard about the flooding while on vacation and watched the pictures on CNN and read the stories in the Miami Herald. But the national coverage left out a lot of the details that I wanted to know. Like what happened to Gringos, the downtown restaurant where my family used to go to dinner every Sunday night? What about the Paramount Theater, where I had sung in my high school choir concerts? Or Theater Cedar Rapids, where I used to go see children's plays as a kid? Or Sub King Deli, the downtown eatery that gave me my first job, wiping down tables and refilling the salad bar?

I knew, just from seeing the aerial shots of the water levels downtown, that all of these personal landmarks must have been wiped out by the floodwaters. But it didn't hit home until I started perusing the photo galleries on the Gazette's site. The windows busted out and mud caking the entrance to what used to be the Paramount Theater. A jumbled mess of props, costumes and furniture in the basement of Theater Cedar Rapids. 

The more photos I see, the more overwhelmed I am by how much was lost last week. And I didn't even lose anything personal. My parents' home is presumed to be fine – they're still in the Dominican Republic, so they won't know for sure whether any damage was done until they get back Sunday. No one I know was displaced by floodwaters. 

But there are about 24,000 people who weren't so lucky – whose losses were both personal and devastating. And my heart goes out to those people as the forever-changed city begins its long, slow journey toward recovery.