City pins hope on 10 miles of quickly erected flood barriers
CEDAR RAPIDS, IOWA >> Facing their second-largest flood in city history, Cedar Rapids leaders and residents pinned their hopes Monday on a 10-mile system of quickly erected flood barriers to protect government buildings, homes and businesses in Iowa’s second largest city.
Crews scrambled to build the floodwall over the weekend to block the rapidly rising Cedar River because, despite years of discussions, officials haven’t been able to secure funding for permanent flood barriers following a devastating flood in 2008.
“The city had eight years to do this but decided to throw up a temporary system in three days,” said Jim Soukup, 30, who sat on a pile of sandbags outside his parents’ home in the Czech Village neighborhood, which was largely empty after thousands of residents heeded a voluntary evacuation ahead of the river’s anticipated crest on Tuesday.
Soukup said he and his father would guard the home — which had several feet of flood water in 2008 — to avoid the prospect of looting.
The river is already in major flood stage, rising past 20 feet on Monday. It was expected to crest at 23 feet, which is eight feet below the 2008 flood that devastated wide swaths of the city of 130,000 people.
Mayor Ron Corbett said 9.8 miles of earthen berms and Hesco barriers, which are mesh-framed, collapsible boxes that can quickly be filled with sand or other material that weren’t available to the city in 2008, have been erected throughout the city. As a secondary line of defense, more than 250,000 sandbags had been piled up around property.
“If it works, we will save the city,” Corbett said.
City leaders plan to closely monitor the flood system, noting that any breaches could cause water to quickly gush into areas and cause problems for residents who don’t evacuate. Authorities said more than half of the 5,800 properties in the evacuation zone had been evacuated by Sunday, and the area had a ghosttown feel by Monday afternoon.