Emporia native Sandi Fowler is waiting for floodwaters to recede to get a full grasp of the damage left behind in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
Fowler, the daughter of Raymond and Twila Fowler of Emporia, has worked for the city of Cedar Rapids for more than 18 years as a liaison between city council members and the departments they oversaw. The city has changed to a city manager form of government and Fowler has been assistant to the city manager for two weeks. Most of those days have been devoted to coping with the effects of torrential rains and floods the likes of which have not been seen for 2,000 years or more.
“The river goes right through the center of the city,” Fowler said. “We and Paris were the only cities in the world on an island, then Paris moved theirs, so we’re the only city in the world on an island.”
That proximity to the Cedar River created a 100-year flood plain, areas that mortgage lenders insisted be covered by flood insurance. No one was especially surprised when the Cedar rose to those levels. Then it continued to rise.
“On Monday, a week ago, we didn’t think this was ever going to occur,” Fowler said in a telephone interview on Tuesday.
Engineers and flood experts later called the phenomenon a 500-year flood, and the water continued to rise.
Flood years grow exponentially, Fowler said, and experts again have revised their estimates, basing it on the number of feet the water extends.
“They’re estimating that this is like a 2,000- or 3,000-year flood,” Fowler said. In terms of damage comparisons, “the city manager said that if this was an earthquake instead of a flood, it would have been 9.2 on the Richter scale.”
The city government itself has been devastated by the waters.
“We lost virtually all of our city service buildings,” she said.
The police department, built in 1997, central fire station, all of the public works buildings, water and water-pollution control facilities, the public library and city hall — a 1927 Veterans Memorial Building with a large stained glass window by hometown artist Grant Wood — all were inundated by the floodwaters. The Wood stained glass survived, she added.
“You can imagine taking away all those services at one time, including all our technology, all our computers,” Fowler said. “This is truly unbelievable.”
The Cedar crested Friday at 10 a.m., almost nine feet above the 100-year flood level.
“We crested at 31.8 feet and our flood level is 12,” Fowler said. “Our highest had been 19.3 in 1993. How do you get 12 more feet on top of that? ... At some point, you realize you have no idea what it means.”
With water levels that often rose to rooftop heights, about 3,900 homes were evacuated within a 9.2-square-mile area constituting 20 to 25 percent of the city’s corporate limits.
“It was simply unbelievable that the level would get to this height, so people couldn’t understand just how far the water would end up being in the community. There’s no way to describe the magnitude of the water,” she said.
The flood greatly affected the city’s water supply.
“We lost 75 percent of water-production capacity,” she said.
Citizens and the city’s large water-consuming industries responded to the city’s call to cut consumption drastically and avoided a total shutdown of water service that could have lasted for weeks.
“They could have fought us on it, but they were incredibly cooperative,” Fowler said of the industrial users outside the massive flood area.
City officials now are organizing clean-up and rebuilding plans and were scheduled to meet Tuesday evening with leaders of the most affected areas of the city. Representatives of the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the American Red Cross also were to be present.
Gathering with those leaders is familiar to Fowler, who has been liaison to the neighborhood associations in Cedar Rapids for the past eight years. The relationships she developed with association leaders will give the city a head start in putting Cedar Rapids back together.
“That’s one piece of my (former) job that I’m kind of holding onto, the administration, the operational oversight over the city’s services of neighborhoods as a comprehensive effort,” she said.
Fowler has been trying to reach those leaders for two to four days, but making the connections has been time-consuming. Many have left their homes and are living with family members and, though she has their cell phone numbers, the cell phone systems have been overtaxed, she said. The overwhelming majority of them lived in the low- to middle-income areas hardest hit by the floods.
“The impact is on the neighborhood leaders I’ve worked with for the last 10 years. It’s heartbreaking because they’ve all lost their homes,” she said. “They are so strong. It’s amazing what they’re saying — ‘We’re going to be okay.’ ‘At least no one’s lost their lives.’ ‘You can always rebuild the things.’”
cypress (anonymous) says...
I would be interested in reading about the flood that occurred 2,000 years ago! Come on Gazette.
Also, "the river goes right through the center of the city.....
so we're the only city in the world on an island". Explain how this is possible!!
"Paris moved theirs"----What? Their river??
June 18, 2008 at 5:19 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
Reader2008 (anonymous) says...
Geez, Cyprus -- you seem a little OCD...even for an editor!
June 19, 2008 at 1:14 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )