Iowa Heritage Digital Collections
State Library of Iowa

Kelly Warren interviewed by Anna Walters about the Midwest floods of June 2008, Iowa City, Iowa, October 2, 2008

Kelly Warren interviewed by Anna Walters about the Midwest floods of June 2008, Iowa City, Iowa, October 2, 2008

Title

Kelly Warren interviewed by Anna Walters about the Midwest floods of June 2008, Iowa City, Iowa, October 2, 2008

Description

Interview with StoryCorps facilitator Anna Walters (25) of Denver, Colorado and Kelly Warren (22) of Clinton, Iowa.
Anna (age 25) interviews Kelly about her efforts preparing the University of Iowa campus for the Iowa River flood in 2008. Kelly worked for three days sandbagging in June until she was forced to leave the city.
Kelly graduated University of Iowa in May 2008. Became a Development Fellow at the University Foundation. Collects private donations for financial aid. Journalism and Sociology major, dedicated to the school. Personal pride (00:00:48) -- Working full-time in the summer. Starting to hear the news. Wanted to help immediately. Emailed President Mason asking for a call to help - the OK to leave her job and sandbag (00:03:53) -- People left work anyway to help on Tuesday. Wednesday the University let them go officially. Went to the Labs and the Union. Seeing coworkers in a different light (00:06:50) -- Tarping up the lab building. Could see the water rising on the river. Pieces of paper on buildings marking the potential water level way over her head (00:09:30) -- Shipping equipment out - researchers still trying to wrap up things. Urgency rising. Eight-hour sandbag shifts (00:11:40) -- Frustrated because Kelly didn't understand how sandbags and plastic would help. Out of the office three full days. Thought everything was safe (00:15:46) -- Watching how people interacted at the time. Working in the engineering lab basements (00:17:45) -- Lindquist Center - trying to save "the brain" - servers, computers. New things to save every hour, evolving priorities (00:21:05) -- Seeing the community come together. Students working alongside prisoners. Running out of sand, feeling helpless. People getting tired, getting sick of other people (00:22:42) -- Highways closed, people stuck in the city. Missed her father's birthday (00:29:40) -- Drove to Waterloo, Iowa to stay with her boyfriend. Didn't want to leave - felt ownership for Iowa City. Seeing photos of her walls failing, feeling disappointed. Nothing she could do (00:32:34) -- Pictures of water on campus, feeling helpless. Iowa Advanced Technology Laboratories was the most financially affected building. Personal connection to the building she worked on (00:38:14) -- Looking back: pride in the university community, ownership, sense of permanence. Wants to stay in Iowa City now more than ever (00:41:40)

Creator

Warren, Kelly

Publisher

StoryCorps (Project); University of Iowa. Libraries. Digital Research & Publishing

Date

2008-10-02
2008-10-02

Contributor

Walters, Anna

Rights

Educational use only, no other permissions given. U.S. and international copyright laws may protect this item. Commercial use or distribution of this digital object is not permitted without written permission of the copyright holder.

Relation

Iowa City Flood
Flood Oral Histories

Format

mpeg
00:44:30

Language

English

Type

Sound
Oral histories (Document genres)

Identifier

DDA000507.mp3
https://digital.lib.uiowa.edu/

Collection