Cedar Rapids, Iowa - levees broke, town is flooded, power is out. No freaking way.

It looks so sadly familiar...

"Rescuers had to use boats to reach many stranded residents in the city of 120,000, and people could be seen dragging suitcases up closed highway exit ramps to escape the water. It wasn't clear just how high the river had risen because a flood gauge was swept away by the swirling water.


..."We are seeing a historic hydrological event taking place with unprecedented river levels occurring," added Brian Pierce, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Davenport. "We're in uncharted territory — this is an event beyond what anybody could even imagine."
Iowa Gov. Chet Culver said storm and water damage to infrastructure will be in the hundreds of millions of dollars, as dozens of bridges have been damaged or destroyed. Nine rivers were at or near record levels, he said.


Cedar Rapids' power was out for most of downtown, complicating rescue efforts, city spokesman Dave Koch told NBC News.
The new evacuations follow a 150-foot breach in an earthen levee early Thursday.


A tornado in the western part of Iowa late Wednesday killed four Boy Scouts and injured dozens.
"This has been a remarkable onslaught of weather — everything from flooding, unbelievable rain and of course tornadoes — all descending at once," Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff told reporters near the scout camp.


"This is major flooding," weather service hydrologist Karl Sieczynski said of the Mississippi.
Meteorologist Bill Karins of NBC's WeatherPlus added: "We are in the middle of a historic flood event in the Upper Mississippi Valley. Most major Iowa rivers are cresting at all-time record levels and this water will soon raise the Mississippi River to its second highest levels in recorded history north of St. Louis.
"The Mississippi River predictions for Burlington, Iowa, call for the crest to be a one in 100-200 year flood, second only to the Great Flood of 1993, which was considered a 500-year flood event," he said. "On the consumer side, thousands upon thousands of acres of farmland will be flooded for weeks with incredible crop losses." " LINK