The resiliency of midwesterners...

You know what I admire most about midwesterners? Their strength. When tough times hit, we just dig in our feet and make the best of it. What good is it to sit around moping, whining and pouting because fortunes frowned on us? Grab your shovel, your gloves and get to work! We've got a lot of clean-up to do!

Case in point: For a very long time, there was a Dairy Queen on Riverside Drive. That twister must have come down right on top of it because it was the only building to have been completely demolished by the twister along that street. This business had been established long ago and was a bit of a landmark for Iowa City citizens. It's destruction was horrifying and the small group of people who took shelter in the small storage basement beneath it were very fortunate to have lived. Anyhow, within 24 hours of being hit, the building's parking lot has been cleaned-up and a new roof has been built above it. There's still a lot of work to be done, but it's heartening to see how quickly we bounce back, how quickly we embrace optimism and look to the future, and NOT dwell on what was lost.

On another note, I have to chuckle at the humor of some citizens whose businesses were hit. The auto dealership next to Dairy Queen suffered quite a bit of damage but as my vanpool headed home after work on Friday, we saw that it had been cleaned-up, vehicles had been washed and waxed, and a new offer was in place on their sign. "Our deals will blow you away." Appropriate, don't you think?

I was browsing some of the photos on the Iowa City Press-Citizen site (incidentally, I should mention that all of the photos I have posted here came from other websites - newspapers, & citizen photos posted to Webshots) today and saw that a salon had boarded up the hole where a window had been shattered and written in spray paint were the words, "Toto, Is this Kansas?"

Anyhow, I also came across some other photos taken by spectators on Thursday night. For as much damage that was done to Riverside Drive, I was surprised that so few photos existed so here are a few making it to the public domain:

Dairy Queen
Hartwig Auto
Alpha Chi Omega sorority house
some unfortunate person's car
Twister!

Ironically enough, I told coworkers on Friday that I would place the twister in Iowa City as an F2 on the fujita scale. I read today that the National Weather Service thought the same thing! It made me feel a little weird telling my coworkers that but...let's face it, the damage was bad, but an F3 would have taken out ALL of those buildings on Riverside Drive. Most bulidings only sustained roof damage. I got some weird looks, but you have to look at it objectively. Maybe next time I won't share my opinion so quickly!!