Word: metzler
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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This week in Coralville, Dave Metzler watched bulldozers raze the flood-ravaged building that housed his business and home - the Coral Lanes bowling alley, which Metzler lived above. "They're driving over the lanes and tearing them up like firewood at a campsite. It's a terrible sound," says Metzler, standing beside a 14-foot high mountain of debris. But, he adds, "I've cried enough over this. There's no tears left...
...Metzler is not among the estimated 1% of Iowans with flood insurance, so he appreciates the help he's received, including $250 in food assistance for the month, $300 a week in "unemployment-type disaster relief" and personal phone calls from a FEMA official. Staying with friends as he awaits a possible FEMA trailer, Metzler is determined to restart his business elsewhere in town. "Heck yeah," he says. "You've got to have a bowling alley in Coralville...
...Sunday, Metzler traveled by boat down a river that was formerly one of the area's busiest streets to find waist-high water in his establishment, Coral Lanes. "That's a disaster, a goner," he says of the 56-year-old bowling alley on First Avenue that he's owned since just after Iowa's devastating 1993 flood. (There is debate about whether Iowa's 2008 flood has been even more devastating...
...Metzler is more hopeful about his apartment above Coral Lanes but doesn't think he'll be able to return to it for about a week. Being ordered to evacuate was like getting "smacked in the face," says Metzler, who had spent eight hours on Thursday sandbagging with friends, family and volunteers. "It was heartbreaking...
...Rinderspacher, a friend Metzler has stayed with, worked for two days to move items out of his irrigation and landscaping business. Flood water came within a foot of his building, then stopped. "It's kind of surreal," he says. "Physically, you're exhausted from doing all this stuff and emotionally you're exhausted from thinking about it and wondering what...