We have been watching it for about a week or so now. The flood waters rising in the Upper Midwest. Nebraska has taken a large brunt of the damage, but there has also been extensive damage in Western Iowa and parts of South Dakota.
If we are going to take a microscope and look at what is happening on the Iowa side of the Missouri River, the damage has been great. Interstate 29 has been shut down in and around Council Bluffs. There is massive flooding of farms and towns, damaging grain being stored and killing livestock. This is to say nothing about what has happened on the other shore in Nebraska.
Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley talked about the damage. The Senator says the flooding looks to be worse than what was experienced by the region in 2011. The Senator says the difference between this year?s flooding and 2011?s is there hasn?t been any fieldwork completed yet.
Grassley says disaster relief is being moved along every avenue available. The Vice President is visiting Iowa and Nebraska today, to look over the damage. For Congress to allot funds for disaster aid, they are going to need hard data to base the relief on, and it is just too early to have all that information.
There is hope relief for Iowa and Nebraska could be added into the bill Senator David Perdue (R-GA) is trying to move for Hurricane and Wildfire relief. However, as Grassley reminds us, this bill only covers disasters the Congress has hard figures for. They will need those numbers for Nebraska and Iowa for any relief to be effective.
