25 August 2009 // 09:26 pm // 0 Comments
Cedar Rapids Flood Recovery
August 25, 2009
Though my background is full of milestones, from June 2008 I put my time and effort into helping my own community come back from a disaster. So on the campaign trail, I’ve been introduced as everything from ‘Instrumental in Cedar Rapids flood recovery’ to ‘The Hero from Cedar Rapids’ (thanks Vergene from Spirit Lake!). As a result, one of the most common questions I get after speaking is, “What did you do to make disaster recovery work out?”
I am the CEO of Corridor Recovery (www.corridorrecovery.org), a non-profit group set up to help lead Linn County and Cedar Rapids back from the second worst natural disaster in US history. It is a partnership between government, civic, business and faith-based organizations, created at the height of the flood, and continuing today. The goal was to jump into problem solving immediately, giving practical help to the community while a long-term solution was created. In most cases, we led an effort for a few months, and then handed it to long-term managers. Practically, here is what we accomplished:
· Volunteer management. During the flood, we worked with a faith-based volunteer group called Serve the City to recruit and mobilize between 3,000 – 4,000 volunteers. We worked around the clock at the Emergency Operations Center, in a table next to the National Guard and police. As the waters receded, Corridor Recovery took the lead to create business and church-based volunteer teams. We trained, equipped and mobilized a volunteer army that swelled to over 5,100 people, to get help to where it was needed most. We matched overwhelming need with appropriate volunteer groups in a way that was fast, safe and bureaucrat free. No need was turned away, whether it was a church, business, home or government agency asking for help.
· City clean up. Through summer 2008, we were cleaning up over 100 houses a week through volunteer labor. Youth groups and Scouts were mobilized, in cooperation with the City’s sanitation department, to clean up streetscapes and miles and miles of fence line. By Fall 2008, day-to-day volunteer coordinating transitioned to Americorps / VISTA groups. You can still volunteer in Cedar Rapids – more info available at www.corridorrecovery.org.
· Accessible information. Corridor Recovery was the hub of all information for the flood recovery city. Rumors abounded, and people did not know where to get good information. Nor did the government and agency information officers know how to spread the word. We consolidated all public information into a single website. As we said, “If it isn’t on Corridor Recovery, it isn’t official.” Since not everyone had computers we set up information centers right in the flooded areas. Laptops, wireless cards, generators and volunteers to help were set up at 5 locations to both get information out, and help people sign up for FEMA relief.
· Business recovery. FEMA told us that based on their work around the U.S., we could count on about 40% of affected businesses failing in the first year. As a member of the Board of Directors for Cedar Rapids Area Chamber of Commerce, we said, “Not on our watch, they won’t!” I organized and chaired the Small Business Task Force, and led business leaders in Cedar Rapids in a coordinated response to identify and help businesses that were about to close. We aimed to cut the FEMA prediction in half. We created and continue to manage the Small Business Recovery Portal – a one-stop shop for all grants and information so that business people could leave the bureaucracy to others. That way they could do what they do best: create good jobs and get products to customers, often around the country. In Cedar Rapids we’ve lost about 20% of our businesses. A tough blow, but through coordinated response we achieved our goal of saving jobs, at last count about 1200 jobs saved. That’s a lot of lives impacted, and a number I am proud of.
· Long Term Recovery Coalition. Corridor Recovery was a founding member of the coalition that became Linn County’s Long Term Recovery Coalition. We helped create an organized response for human and social needs – from mental health and getting people out of FEMA trailers and into homes, as well as the process of rebuilding lives. I partnered with a Los Angeles based group to funnel money into a Christmas gift program, so that families without jobs and homes could still get their kids Christmas presents. The United Way of East Central Iowa is now doing a wonderful job leading the LTRC.
· Recovery and Reinvestment Coordinating Team. For the year following the flood, I was a member of the core “RRCT” team that guided the day-to-day recovery efforts for Cedar Rapids. We met for thousands of hours, sometimes in buildings without electricity, to figure out how to cut through red tape and get help to the City as fast as possible. And where tension might emerge between agencies with too few resources – and how to prioritize so that even if one group had to wait, we advanced in a united fashion.
Corridor Recovery has been a model for other cities. After Hurricane Rita, Galveston, TX worked to create a similar model. MIT recognized it as a “best practice” for how to use the internet in civic service. But the best result is the number of lives rebuilt, and hope restored.
Flood recovery went beyond what I did in Corridor Recovery. My wife and I made the personal decision to take a flood family into our home. We worked with them through the long and difficult process from June 2008 to March 2009. Over those months, one lost his job and I worked with him to figure out “what next?” They lost their home, and my wife stood tearfully by them as the wrecking crew tore it down. But the great thing was to see how they never lost their hope. Neighbors helping neighbors; Iowans helping Iowans. It’s what we do best as a state.
The day of the flood’s one-year anniversary, on June 13, 2009, my wife and I slipped out of town to visit Terrace Hill, the Governor’s residence (great public tours available too). We remembered that while politicians were grandstanding and looking for “photo ops” the true leaders of Cedar Rapids emerged and made the community work. We are rebuilding Cedar Rapids so it comes back even better than before. Through Corridor Recovery, as well as the work of hundreds of dedicated citizens, my community will do just that. I’m honored to be able to have provided leadership for my community.
