Without question, the most invisible, but very real environmental health threat winter cruelly throws our way each year is ice, ice baby. And a fall on ice is not nearly as ear worm catchy as the Vanilla Ice rap classic, it just cold, hard hurts. Trust us, folks, sitting laid up with a broken foot, […]
Winter treats our homes with all the tenderness of a sledgehammer slamming into drywall and a hungry shark devouring a meal. For some seasonally unreasonable reason, winter has a grudge for our homes. When reached for comment, Old Man Winter declined, saying he was too busy plotting another winter storm to hurl on Iowa. Mother […]
As the thermostat plunges further toward zero, the nervous Iowa homeowner prays to St. Sebaldus, the Patron Saint of Fighting Cold Weather, that her home’s aging water supply pipes can withstand the latest polar plunge of a relentless Iowa winter. For many Iowans with older homes, this is a heartbreaking fact of brutal Iowa winters. […]
Old Man Winter’s Worst Damage Often Doesn’t Appear Until Spring The good news for winter-weary Iowans: Regardless of what Punxsutawney Phil (who, rumor has it, has been put in the Groundhog Protection Program by the FBI for his own safety) says, spring is coming. But what cost this winter’s ruthless savagy has inflicted upon your […]
If your house is so cold this winter, you’re opening the refrigerator to heat the place, your home may be singing “Ice Ice Baby.” If your house is so cold this winter ice cubes are coming out of the faucet, your home may be doubling as Mr. Freeze’s lair from “Batman.” If your house is […]
From Anne and Bill Allen: A year ago last January when our state was in a deep freeze we received a phone call from our neighbor that we had a water pipe break. I did not understand the extent of damage 34,000 gallons of water could do until receiving pictures. Our insurance company contacted 380 […]
Along the lower Mississippi River todays lies stunning, costly, heartbreaking and immensely painful images of the destruction and devastation floodwaters have inflicted on thousands of Midwest U.S. home and business owners, their families, employees and customers. The Mighty Mississippi’s waters continue to rise to record levels in many low-lying areas in Missouri and Illinois as […]
