Publication date: March 2012

By the Iowa Sea

A Memoir of Disaster and Love

by Joe Blair

Excerpt:
A tornado will tear a building apart, which isn’t a good thing. But at least it’s easy to understand. "My home," says the victim, wading through the rubble, "has been completely destroyed."

Fire has the grace to relieve a structure of the very materials that allow it to exist.

But a flood works differently. A flood infects a building with itself and leaves it standing, to rot and fester and steal away hope from those who venture inside.