Reflecting on a ravaging flood

By BRYCE MILLER
Executive Sports Editor
Des Moines Register

Story posted on June 19, 2008

Bryce Miller

More than a year ago, The Des Moines Register began discussing June 2008 and the events descending on central Iowa.

Nick Price, Fuzzy Zoeller, Tom Kite and other Champions Tour golfers at the Principal Charity Classic ...

The nation's best collegians at the NCAA Track and Field Championships ...

Danica Patrick and Helio Castroneves at the Iowa Corn Indy 250 ...

The Hy-Vee Triathlon, the world's richest triathlon in 2007 and planned Olympic qualifier this year ...

We were ready for a flood of sports coverage.

What we hadn't anticipated, though, was a flood of real and life-affecting proportions that stretched far beyond the realm of sports cliché.

As the weekend waned, Iowa Gov. Chet Culver announced 36,000 Iowans were forced out of their homes, outlined that 83 of Iowa's 99 counties were covered by the state's disaster declaration, and estimated 16 percent of the state's farmland had vanished under the muddy water and muck.

Surreal scenes ranged from Coast Guard teams used in Hurricane Katrina boating through streets in land-locked Iowa to an entire town – like tiny Oakville in the southeast part of the state – so overrun that the mayor suggested the community may not rebuild.

Agony shared stage with inspiration.

Iowa newspapers met extraordinary circumstances with extraordinary performances. In the newsrooms of the Cedar Rapids Gazette and Iowa City Press-Citizen, days and long nights were filled with the dual weight of journalism responsibility and the fight to fend off water in their own streets and homes.

The Cedar Rapids Gazette published in print and online despite a massive surge that swallowed major parts of the downtown area – and cut off essentials like bathrooms and air conditioning. The Iowa City Press-Citizen provided round-the-clock coverage, even as the Iowa River claimed an estimated one-eighth of the University of Iowa campus.

In Cedar Rapids, Dale Jones coordinated sports and sports-related disaster assignments while sports editor J.R. Ogden worked at a pre-flood assignment out of state. Sports staffers like reporter Marc Morehouse and columnist Mike Hlas shifted to overnight duties – including continuously updated coverage online. The Gazette also printed the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier when floodwater forced that newspaper to scramble for publishing alternatives.

Hannah van Zutphen-Kann / AP Floodwaters stand near the old Iowa City water treatment plant (right) in Iowa City, Iowa, on Monday, June 16, 2008.

In Iowa City, managing editor Jim Lewers split up his staff in the middle of the night, sending one group to the other side of the Iowa River to ensure they could cover the story – even if bridge access was cut off.

In Des Moines, we created 24/7 staffing throughout the week and weekend involving more than 150 staffers. Our web site, which featured 84 flood-related photo galleries in less than one week produced more traffic in nine days than any single month in the history of the site – easily outpacing the huge amount of national visitors on the night of the Iowa caucuses.

Sports investigative reporter Tom Witosky was first on the scene at a levee breach in a Des Moines neighborhood – at 3:30 in the morning. College basketball and golf reporter Rick Brown patrolled another neighborhood during overnight shifts.

Reporters Dan McCool and Lisa Colonno chronicled the lack of drinking water from Mason City. Prep reporter John Naughton grabbed waders and a digital camera to tell the story of water-logged northeast Iowa – including the recovery of the famous "Little Brown Church in the Vale" in Nashua. Auto racing writer Rob Gray filed updates on the U of I campus crisis from Iowa City. College sports reporter Randy Peterson continuously monitored the threats and damage to triple-A baseball's Principal Park as rivers overtook the stadium.

I shifted roles, coordinating and overseeing the statewide newsroom report for the weekend as waters that engulfed Cedar Rapids and the University of Iowa's campus aimed at more defenseless small towns downstream. We coordinated a team of field reporters, feeding four sections even as the NCAA track championships continued its four-day run.

By weekend's end, I worked more than 40 hours in three days and averaged three to four hours of sleep throughout the heart of the newspaper's flood coverage.

I was far from alone – at this newspaper or others.

Competition faded as publishers in Des Moines and Cedar Rapids discussed contingencies in case the Gazette was unable to print its newspaper. And even at the moment of these keystrokes, waters are lapping the edges of downtown Burlington and colleagues there such as sports editor and APSE award-winner John Bohnenkamp.

Iowa already had been battered in recent weeks by an EF-5 tornado that erased parts of two towns on one side of the state, and another twister to the west that claimed the lives of camping Boy Scouts.

At times, it's been hard to fathom and fully realize the devastation and destruction the state has suffered – and the dedication of so many standing up, dusting themselves off and starting again.

Helping cover Iowa's biggest story in decades amid the biggest sports month in the history of the Des Moines Register sports department was a challenge.

It also has been, in our newsroom and at others across eastern Iowa, an inspiration.

Bryce Miller is the executive sports editor of the Des Moines Register. You can reach him via e-mail at brmiller@dmreg.com.

Check out the newspaper online at www.desmoinesregister.com.

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