Oakville Boat Tour 2008

Henry Marquard, chairman of the Environmental Protection Commission, Iowa DNR asked if I would set up a meeting with the mayors of Columbus Jct., Wapello, and Oakville and a tour of each city.

I told Henry the only way we could tour Oakville was by boat. So, I called a person authorized by the levee commisson and the county sheriff to go into the area, Dave Shipman. I thank Dave for allowing us to go with him.

Rich Yotter, who operates the pumping station, went along also to view the station and his home at the pumping station site. Dennis Ostwinkle staff person for the DNR Environmental Protection division out of the Washington, IA office went on the tour also.

All of us were in awe of the devastation in the Oakville area. The Henry and Dennis said they would be offering assistance with clean up as soon as the water is down.

Thanks to Sam Willson, I now have some names to put with houses. This house belong's to Wayne Gerst.

Keep in mind that when we went on the boat tour, the water had already dropped appoximately 3 feet. Look for the water line on some of the houses, especially Doug and Jane Boyers.

Boat owner Dave Shipman on the left and Henry Marquard on the right. Oakville bottom in the background. No that's not a lake. Again, thanks Dave for the trip.

Looking at trees on the inside of the Mississippi River levee East of Oakville. The problem now is the water can't get out of the flooded ground. The break in the levee was upstream along the Iowa River West of Oakville.

Rich Yotter getting out on porch roof to go into a second story window of his house. Tom Young is on the right.

Most of the livestock was evacuated. The hogs not evacuated either drowned or climbed on buildings or the levee for safety. Go to my home page and click on the great PBS movie of Jeff Boyer's tour and his hog loss. A moving story.