CEDAR RAPIDS, IA — As the Cedar River overflowed its banks Thursday, sending thousands of residents in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, scurrying to higher ground, those in Iowa City to the south began to grasp the full implications of what meteorologists are terming a hundred-year flood.
Jewish Community in Iowa City Joins Sandbagging Effort
CEDAR RAPIDS, IA — As the Cedar River overflowed its banks Thursday, sending thousands of residents in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, scurrying to higher ground, those in Iowa City to the south began to grasp the full implications of what meteorologists are terming a hundred-year flood.
According to Rabbi Avrohom Blesofsky, co-director of Chabad-Lubavitch of Iowa City and its Chabad House serving the University of Iowa, as of mid-week the town was already “very hard hit” from days of unrelenting rain. Although his home is “not in danger at all,” he joined the hundreds of other residents who fanned out across the Midwestern city to shore up neighborhoods against the rising waters of the Iowa River.
“They told us that on one day alone, they ordered 11 million sandbags,” said Blesofsky, who moved to Iowa in 2002, nine years after the great flood of 1993 left swaths of land up and down the Mississippi River and its tributaries in ruins. “We spent hours filling them and loading them into trucks. The rest of the time, we built a six-foot wall near the new commerce center.”
The rabbi said that he knew of at least one Jewish community member’s home in danger of the flooding. He said that the man, a local restaurateur, called everyone to come and help save his home.
“His house is a block away from the river,” said Blesofsky. “A lot of us joined in trying to help out.”
da benhamous
go Avremel!
guy
yosher koach avremel!
fp
true chesed your father would be proud of you and your mother shep nachas all of the family
S.M.
not surprising…………just like you!!!!!
former iowa citian
So sad to see Iowa City under water. Keep doing the Rebbe’s work and hope things improve soon for the family and community.
~Brina Gonzalez and family
Sammy
Avremel keep saving the city spiritually and physically! We are proud of you!
Thanks
Moshe H
Maybe these floods have to do with the raid on the Rubashkin plant…
Levitche
Avremel you can do at least four sandbags at a time!
Sh’koyach
Stop Global Warming.
yup say hello to Global Warming! flood’s are coused by the melting ice in Antartica/Greenland/and alaska. so stop putting CO2 intoo the world and go green go. there is nothing bad with going green. it means being more better to the envierment.