As you may know by now, the last 24-hours have been an exceptionally trying time for Iowa.  With the deaths of four boy scouts in western Iowa, the exceptionally flooding on the Cedar River (which now claims parts of Waterloo, Cedar Falls and Cedar Rapids) and the closing of barge travel on the Mississippi, there is an escalating tragedy unfolding before us.  It's not just about Iowa, it's about all of us and the future of this nation.

This article only begins to highlight the tragedy which is Cedar Rapids, a city very close to my heart:

'Uncharted territory' as city floods in Iowa

"We're just kind of at God's mercy right now, so hopefully people that never prayed before this, it might be a good time to start," Linn County Sheriff Don Zeller said. "We're going to need a lot of prayers and people are going to need a lot of patience and understanding."

For all of you unfamiliar with the area, those buildings in the middle of the river are City Hall and the surrounding are all downtown.  Cedar Rapids is a city of 120,000.

Another highlight of the problems yet to come:

Midwest flooding could push prices of food higher

"It's clearly a panic situation," said Gary Rhea, president of Risk Management Partners, a marketing firm here.

Survey what's happened yourself:

• Iowa's two major cities are either flooded or at risk of flooding worse than 1993.  Cedar Rapids is calling this the 500-year plan (i.e. this type of flooding has a 1 in 500 chance of occurring each year).  Thousands have been evacuated.
  
• More levees are expected to break.
  
• St. Louis is at risk of flooding as early as this weekend.
  
• 1/4 of the southern third of Wisconsin's corn crops may be completely gone.
  
• Barge travel on the Mississippi is either slowed or completely shut down in parts - contributing to the escalation of food prices.

Maybe the Linn County Sheriff is right, we should pray.

Now, it's easy to solely blame the failures of the Bush administration.  At best a bungled response to Hurricane Katrina should have created the call to update and modernize American infrastructure - but that obviously did not happen.  The bridge collapse in Minnesota is just further proof that not only is American infrastructure cracking, the Bush administration has taken a hands off approach to the problems of American citizens.

Senator Obama has a plan, from what I can tell, to address both the atrocious response and continued incompetence of the Gulf Coast rebuilding, but I urge him now to look at Senator Clinton's infrastructure plans and adopt them as well.  Among the ideas that can compliment Obama's comprehensive plan to professionalize and depoliticize FEMA:

- Establish a $10 billion "Emergency Repair Fund" to address the backlog of critical infrastructure repairs.
- Provide $250 million in "Emergency Assessment Grants" to the states to conduct immediate safety reviews of their high-priority, high-risk infrastructure assets.
- Form a commission to carry out a comprehensive assessment of our engineering review standards so that we better prioritize needed repairs on bridges and roads.

Friends, this an issue that should be among our forefront issues - the well being of this nation depends on it. So, I urge you - for the sake of the Katrina and Midwest flood victims and yourself - write Senator Obama, ask him to adopt Senator Clinton's plans as part of his own and let us rebuild an America that can withstand the hardships ahead of us.

Update: Both Obama and Clinton have put up links to the Red Cross. Whatever you can give, please help out those in the Midwest. The Red Cross