Here‘s a quick update on a couple of Iowa fitness facilities that we reported on Wednesday concerning the floods in that state:

An employee at the River Plaza Athletic Club in Waterloo, IA, said today that they‘re still trying to pump water out of the club. The hope is that the club will re-open on Monday, or at least parts of the club, the employee said.

There was also a voluntary evacuation for much of downtown Des Moines, IA, and other areas bordering the Des Moines River this afternoon, the Associated Press reports. Several clubs and a YMCA are located there.

Perhaps the hardest hit town today is Cedar Rapids, IA. The AP reports that rising water from the Cedar River forced the evacuation of a downtown hospital, and residents of more than 3,000 homes fled for higher ground. A railroad bridge collapsed, and 400 city blocks are under water.

The Rockwell Collins Recreation Center in Cedar Rapids is still open, but showers are closed because of the city‘s request for limited water use, and there is no towel service, according to Ian Sizer, the front desk supervisor at Rockwell Collins. The gymnasium and running track were closed off in the club and will be used as an American Red Cross shelter for people displaced by the flood, he says. Classes are closed as well.

Dave Koch, a spokesman for the Cedar Rapids fire department, told the AP that the river will crest today at about 31.8 feet. It was at 30.9 feet early in the morning. In a 1993 flood, considered the worst flood in recent history, the river was at 19.27 feet, the AP reports.

In other words, compared to the flood of ‘93, this year‘s flood “blows it away,” Sizer says. -Stuart

Yesterday, Jennipher Shaver and I called a bunch of fitness facilities in Iowa in an attempt to find out how the recent flooding in that state has affected their businesses. In just a small sample of calls, we found out that a lot of places, from for-profit facilities to YMCAs to university rec centers, were affected in some way.

The most startling response came from the River Plaza Athletic Club in Waterloo, IA. The club, a former YMCA, is aptly named–it‘s right near the Cedar River. When I first called there Wednesday afternoon, the lady who responded said she was “ankle-deep” in water. Then I later talked to the sleep-deprived owner for a good 15 minutes to get some more details. Considering the circumstances, I was surprised to find how willing he was to share some information. He even asked me for our Web site, eager to read the story. (I bet he read our story at home, not at the club.)

We couldn‘t get to everybody, obviously. If you are a club in Iowa or anywhere else in the Midwest dealing with flood issues, we want to hear from you. Click on the comment button to share your experiences with us. -Stuart

Late last week, I received an e-mail from IHRSA that the club membership levels in the United States were 41.5 million. Earlier this year, IHRSA had estimated that that number would be 44.1 million, but upon final tally, the number was just slightly above the 41.3 million members the industry reportedly had in 2005 and lower than the 42.7 million members the industry reportedly had in 2006.

Although IHRSA says this change is not statistically significant, I find more than one million members to be significant. I’ve e-mailed IHRSA to find out whether the numbers reported for 2006 were just wrong or whether in fact the industry has lost more than one million members in a year. I’ll let you know what they say when I hear back. –Pam