Today is a typical summer day in Iowa, hot and humid. It’s forecasted to get up into the low 90’s . Summer is officially here! This last Monday, the excessica anthology: Four Seasons: Summer 2009 came out. As one of the contributing authors for this, I was excited to write a hot 
summer read.
Since my thoughts were turned towards a summer themed story, I couldn’t help but think about last summer. Unfortunately my area was gripped by a massive flood in June of last year. Over a hundred blocks of my hometown’s downtown district flooded along with all seven of the street bridges which connected the south side of town and north side were under water. At eleven feet over flood stage even a train trestle with loaded train cars was lost to the flood waters. It quite literally shut the town down. With 10,000 people evacuated and several of our major businesses under water, namely Quaker Oats and Fire and Casualty and we could do nothing but find shelters for the displaced people and pray for the water to subside.
It was devastating and as writer I toyed with the idea of writing something about it but it was too hard for me at that time. But when I sat down to work on my contribution for this anthology, I felt the need again to write about it but not as a tragedy that was on going. Why not visit two survivors of the flood? Hence, Alessandra and Noah from A Moment Out Of Time came to life. Alessandra was a spunky fireworks expert who worked for a demolition and fireworks company and Noah was a sexy but protective firefighter and rescue worker. Setting the background was a challenge but I think I managed to blend a few flashbacks with the scenes set a year later. Including the train trestle collapse seemed to be a fitting even though as a writer I took the liberty of placing a stranded worker (Alessandra) on the trestle and Noah coming to her rescue. As far as I am aware there were no people near the trestle when it collapsed. The story is continued when they meet nearly a year later. Noah believing he’s lost Alessandra is unprepared for when he meets up with her on a routine inspection. He decides he’s not going to lose her again and as they say the rest is history.
By adding a bit of romance and undisguised passion, I hope I’ve set a fitting tribute to my hometown and perhaps even brought a bit of light to the tragedy. My intention was never to dishonor the people who are still recovering and trying to resume their lives even now, but to draw some attention to those who’ve survived the flood. I want to especially thank Selena for taking this story and adding it to her anthology. For those who might be interested I’ve included a link to a short video my local news station put together. Thanks all for letting me take this time to pay a little tribute to those who lost so much a year ago. June 13th is the official date for the one year anniversary of the floods.
Dakota
3:16 pm on June 20th, 2009 1
of how a city and it’s people can recover from such terrible devastation. I will support the people of Iowa
as they continue to recover. Dakota’s story puts a very
positive look into perspective — people were rescued and life still goes on as two fine people find each other again and fall in love. A bit of the Summer’s heat
can be found again in well-written passion. Thanks DT!
9:35 am on October 22nd, 2009 2
Just like when we were kids, there were always kids that were mean and disrespectful, the kids that broke things and hurt other kids. ,
8:00 am on October 23rd, 2009 3
Somehow you are not showing any sceptic attituge towards the bullshit you read from the blogs of the deniers. ,