Iowa River Crests, But Mississippi Rising

June 16, 2008 — -- The last time Cedar Rapids, Iowa resident Mark Meyers' wife and daughter saw their home; the view was from the bow of a rescue boat as floodwaters rose to the doorframes and window sills.

Meyer came home alone this weekend to assess the damage; his wife and daughter couldn't bear to make the trip.

"It is irreplaceable," Meyers told ABC News as he returned to his home.

There was so much mud in his home he could hardly get the front door open.

"I've been collecting this stuff with my wife for the last 30 years and it is all gone," he said as he pulled a sculpture of a horse out of the muck.

After more than a week of ferocious flooding along the Iowa and Mississippi Rivers, tragedies like Meyer's have become common. Already more than 36,000 Iowa residents have been evacuated and, with the cresting of the Mississippi River only days away, the numbers will only grow.

"It's likely that we will see major and serious flooding on every part of the southeastern border of our state," Iowa Gov. Chet Culver told The Associated Press.

"We are taking precautionary steps. We are evacuating where necessary, but that is going to be the next round here."

The National Guard has been called in to help several cities fortify their levees along the Mississippi with sandbags.

In Keokuk, Iowa, efforts are being made not only to protect the levee but, ironically, the city's water supply as well.

Experts say one of the relatively unknown consequences of massive flooding is the contamination of water storage and treatment plants. Several cities in Iowa have already asked businesses and homeowners to do what they can to conserve water to minimize the strain.

In Iowa City, home to the University of Iowa, the damage could have been worse, officials think, because of the massive loss of water from all the levees that broke upstream forcing the Iowa River to crest a bit earlier, but thankfully lower, than expected in Iowa City.

Despite a huge student sandbagging effort at University of Iowa, 16 buildings on the campus were flooded. About 5,000 of the the town's 60,000 residents were evacuated.

For many Iowa evacuees, frustration has been added to the already enormous emotional toll as safety checkpoints have impeded the return to their damaged homes.

"It's stupid," Vince Fiala, a Cedar Rapids resident, told the AP. Fiala said he waited for four hours fore the police to allow him to walk five blocks to his house.

Craig Blazek agreed. "It's my property," Blazek shouted at officials at a roadblock over the weekend. "I own it. Why can't I go in and inspect it?"

Police and city officials insist the checkpoints are needed so that electrical and structural damage inspections can be made to determine if homes are safe before allowing people to return.

For resident Tiffany Remington, no amount of waiting would have prepared her for the nightmare she found when she was finally allowed to return home.

"It is frustrating not to know what your place is like and now we know that we have nothing," Remington told ABC News through tears as she trudged around barefooted in the mud in her home.

"Everything we worked so hard for is just gone."