Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Don't mean to depress anyone, and I wasn't going to bring this up because it is off topic, but most of you have seen on national news that the area that I live in is a horrifying flooding disaster right now. My wife Donna and I live in a small town between Cedar Rapids and Iowa City, we both grew up in Cedar Rapids, Donna works in Cedar Rapids and I work in Iowa City, these two cities are devastated, and many of our family and friends, and the community in general are in dyer straits, besides all the obvious damage, the treated water is in shortage for Cedar Rapids, luckily our house did not flood, but others houses are destroyed, so we have opened our house up to family in Cedar Rapids to take showers, do laundry, and have meals with fresh food from our backyard garden, ect. ect. Please say a prayer for this area of the country because it's bad, really bad.
Thanks
Jeff
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Jeff Benfer
You'll get your regius's to the wall, man!
1.0 pastel Python regius
0.1 mojave Python regius
0.1 normal Python regius
0.2 Terrapene carolina thriunguis
2.3 Terrapene carolina carolina
4.1 Kinosternon baurii
1.1 Malaclemys terrapin terrapin
2.1 Ambystoma tigrinum
2.2 het albino and anerythristicThamnophis sirtalis parietalis
1.0 anerythristic Thamnophis sirtalis parietalis
1.1 Iowa snow Thamnophis radix
1.1 heterozygous for amelanistic,carmel, and stripe Pantherophis guttatus
0.1 anerythristic motley Pantherophis guttatus

My heart and prayers goes out to you and the other people there. I have been through some tuff times and lost everything before.
Not fun. Keep us posted on how the box turtles there do as well. I am very interested in how the ones in the wild cope too. I have some people that are looking into how the ones are coping with coastal flooding. I try to keep track of as many populations as I can. Eric

Jeff,

I'll been sending good thoughts out that way. And good for you for opening your home and sharing what you have. you're a good neighbor to have.

Sorry to hear your family and friends have been affected but the flooding. Hope no one has lost their home! I'm very sorry if they have.

The flooding has hit several mid western states bad-my state, Indiana, being one of them. I have seen many more box turtles on the roads lately, probably due to the flooding of their home ranges. Of course much farm land (and livelihoods) has been destroyed. Very sad situation and goes to show we should never take for granted our homes, families and friends-we could lose them in a flash.

When we had those terrible flash floods in town, I had to take my turtles out of their night time pens because water was filling them up! Even though I have an actual drain under the pens-the rain was coming down so fast there was no way for the water to drain quick enough. My neighbor took pictures-our back yard looked like a river with white water rapids. Very strange and terrible weather we are having! Tess

Well thanks guys, the good news is the water is going down quickly and as of this morning the city is back up to 50% treated water production so people with even numbered house street address can take showers and do laundry on even days and people with odd #ed house can use water on odd days. So we didn't have as much company today as we had expected, so we had a lot of left overs at lunch But still we have friends, family, and co-workers who have flooded homes and business and right now can't even get back to see there homes untill the city checks things out and OKs for safely. I can't even get to work tomorow because all the roads to cross the river to get there are closed unless I wanted to drive 250 miles one way, so a friend of mine(who is a math teacher at a local college in Cedar Rapids were they have set up an animal barn to house all the rescued pets that were left behind or somehow separated from their owners) and I are going to volunteer to help clean cages and feed and water those pets, which will be mostly cats and dogs, but there are any reptiles, I will have a bit of experience to offer in that area too. Too be honest I feel kind of guilty because we were so lucky the little town we live in didn't flood, so we are really uneffected directly, but Cedar Rapids is still were we grew up and will always be home, so I want to do what I can to help, unfortunately I have to get on an airplane to Atlanta for work on tues for a couple days, I'm sure there will still be lots of clean up efforts I can help with in the evenings and weekend when I get back though.
Yah Tess, I come from a farming family, and many of the fields aren't even planted yet, due to the weather this year, it's really getting to be too late for corn, and beans are questionalble, its very wierd to see unplanted fields full of weeds and water in mid June and sad, keep in mind the midwest is a major part in feeding the world so food prices will go up, this effects everyone.
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Jeff Benfer
You'll get your regius's to the wall, man!
1.0 pastel Python regius
0.1 mojave Python regius
0.1 normal Python regius
0.2 Terrapene carolina thriunguis
2.3 Terrapene carolina carolina
4.1 Kinosternon baurii
1.1 Malaclemys terrapin terrapin
2.1 Ambystoma tigrinum
2.2 het albino and anerythristicThamnophis sirtalis parietalis
1.0 anerythristic Thamnophis sirtalis parietalis
1.1 Iowa snow Thamnophis radix
1.1 heterozygous for amelanistic,carmel, and stripe Pantherophis guttatus
0.1 anerythristic motley Pantherophis guttatus