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Summer flooding seeps into lives of students
After the floods of ’93, Iowans hoped that a disaster this detrimental would not happen again. While most of Des Moines stayed in the clear, other areas faced the tragedy of lost homes, jobs and money.Junior Xannie Reif was unfortunate when flood waters took over her neighborhood. Reif’s family was evacuated when water levels started to rise.
“I live on the corner of Madison Avenue and MLK parkway, I’m on a hill,” Reif said. While Reif didn’t lose anything in the flood, her neighbors were less fortunate.
“All the houses around the corner from me are lower and got flooded,” Reif said.
After the flooding was over, clean up began.
“There was sewage everywhere, it was disgusting,” Reif said.
Senior Jordan Taha had an experience this summer when floodwaters took over the neighborhood she worked in.
“Although my neighborhood wasn’t affected majorly, a lot of my co workers lived in the four mile radius and got it much worse,” Taha said
Taha has been life-guarding for two years.
“I work for the city of Des Moines as a lifeguard at Birdland pool by North high school,” Taha said.
When Taha found out the pool she worked at was under water, she quickly found other job options.
“I, as well as my co-workers got to do a lot of fun jobs,” Taha said.
Some jobs she did over the summer included rosebush trimming, guarding the elevator at the downtown library, and running concessions at Gray’s Lake.
While Taha had good luck finding jobs, others had trouble.
“I made about the same amount of hours as I would at Birdland because I worked hard to find hours, but others were not lucky,” Taha said.
While working hard all summer and helping out others, Taha says she benefited a lot from this experience.
“The city flooding was a great chance for me to meet tons of city employees. I made lots of new friends from working at other pools in the Des Moines area,” Taha said.
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