Midwest Begins Flood Recovery
By Margaret Foster | Online Only | June 26, 2008
The Historic Center building in Fort Madison, Iowa, is engulfed by flood waters.
Credit: Lyle L. Brown
As floodwaters that devastated the Midwest recede and begin to flow south, towns in Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, and Wisconsin are beginning to recover.
Tens of thousands of people were forced to evacuate their homes when swollen rivers overflowed their banks in mid-June. In Iowa, Cedar Rapids was hardest hit: Its downtown was submerged beneath five feet of water, causing billions of dollars of damage.
Last week, Main Street Iowa sent a team to four towns in the northeastern part of the state where damage was most severe: Waverly, Elkader, Waterloo, and Charles City.
"All the debris that was piled up on the street made it like a war zone. It's pretty dramatic," says Thom Guzman, director of the Iowa Downtown Resource Center, which oversees the Main Street Iowa program. Guzman's group cleaned out flooded basements, carried sand bags, and ripped out damaged carpet, and gave design assistance to business owners, urging them to save elements of their buildings.
Seven museums in Cedar Rapids flooded, as well as three museums in Cedar Falls. Brucemore, a National Trust Historic Site in Cedar Rapids, is collecting donations of cleanup supplies for those museums. The site's garden house has opened its doors as a "preservation headquarters" for out-of-town professionals.
The National Trust's Midwest Office, based in Chicago, is helping by providing resources and technical assistance to those in flood-damaged areas.
Already, several Iowa towns are picking up the pieces. Elkader reopened its only grocery store last week, less than 10 days after it had been immersed in five feet of water. Waverly reopened its movie theater. Several Main Street programs from other states like Florida, Ohio, and Mississippi have "adopted" Iowa towns, partnering with them to help out.
As for the next step, Guzman says his group plans to offer design assistance to downtown shop owners who are facing repairs. "We will be coordinating business assistance visits to our Main Street towns so we can be there when they open their doors to help them through the next period," Guzman says. "[Our design consultants] know old buildings well and can give them some great advice."
Read the National Trust for Historic Preservation's Resources for Dealing with Flood Damage
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