“It happens quite a bit, but every time it happens it’s still disastrous,” he said.

The flood, which damaged 16 buildings at the University of Iowa and caused thousands of Cedar Rapids residents to evacuate their homes, teaches residents to take necessary precautions to prevent water damage, Kirschbaum said.

“I wish people would learn that the river does flood, and maybe there’s some things we can do to prevent such gigantic loss of property,” he said. “There’s definitely things people could do to help alleviate some of the flooding.”

Flooding began early last week. With 83 of Iowa’s 99 counties declared disaster areas by the state, the flood compares to the deluge of 1993, which caused millions of dollars in damages in nine Midwestern states, including Iowa.

Julia Jones, a medical student at the University of Iowa, has postponed her medical exams due to water damage at the University of Iowa hospital.

The third-year medical student ended clinical rotations on Friday, but because students were sent home after the flood, Jones said classwork will have to wait until a later date.

Jones said that the university was more prepared for the flood than she expected.

“I was really surprised they had all the sandbags available, and tons of volunteers able to help,” Jones said.

The hospital had problems with steam leaking through from the flood, Jones said, and classes were canceled for medical students, even though the Iowa River separates the hospital from the rest of campus.

The University of Iowa has three summer sessions, two of which will likely be cut short a week on account of classes being canceled from June 13-22, said Steve Parrott, director of university relations.

“We’ll try to get through the course material in that same amount of time,” Parrott said.

Parrott said the university wants to make sure that graduate students keep on track with necessary credits, regardless of class cancellations.

The damages on campus when students return is hard to measure, Parrott said, but the Iowa Memorial Union and the arts campus have been most affected by water.

The bookstore was moved to another building on campus due to damages, he said.

Iowa State University alumna Kate Stone came home to 4 feet of water in her basement because of flooding, she said.

“Everything had to be pulled out of there,” Stone said. “We had a whole Dumpster full; the only thing that made it is the hot water heater.”

Stone missed work on Friday to help sandbag her mother’s house, located near downtown Des Moines, where the water rose extremely high in the backyard.

“We’re hoping that this is going to be it,” Stone said. “It’s a lot of clean up.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report