"Not snow, nor heat, nor gloom of night but a rain-induced sewer backup stayed delivery of some 30,000 pieces of Des Moines mail. 'I think we bought every clothespin in town,' says postal worker Lora Yahnke, who helped sort and dry the wet mail in a garage. Such jury-rigging kept most city services afloat."
—From "Riding Out the Worst of Times," January 1994, National Geographic magazine
