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Sink or swim


I have one thing to say. To shout. To scream at the top of my lungs.

STOP RAINING, ALREADY!!!!!!

To read the latest news about our flood of 2008 -- projected to be worse than the history-making flood of '93 -- click here.

One piece of news yesterday rocked the University of Iowa community and, I'm sure, sent the General Counsel scrambling. The University revealed that a coffer dam project on the Iowa River in the heart of campus is actually making the flooding worse. The technical jargon makes my head hurt, but basically they were building a dam to hold back the water so they could build a giant water pipe under the river that will carry chilled water from one side of campus to the other.

I've dubbed the project "The Curse of the Coffer Dam" because this project has gone on for years, been plagued with engineering failures and delayed by, go figure, bad weather. Now they're saying it's causing the river level to be much higher than it normally would. Areas not covered by the 100-year-flood insurance survey -- areas that did not flood in '93 -- are expected to be under water by next week.

Many expect the lawsuits to be filed shortly thereafter.

(Photo courtesy Matthew Holst/Press-Citizen)

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