Iowa Independent Living Centers Report on Floods

We received this e-mail today concerning what ILCs in Iowa are dealing with due to the devastating floods of this week:

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Dear IL Friends in Iowa and Across the Nation,

As you all know, Iowa is being hit very hard with flood waters. The office of the Black Hawk Center for Independent Living, located in Waterloo, Iowa, has been totally lost to flood waters. The office is NOT located on a flood plain. The staff had pulled things out of the basement, and put computers and records up on desk tops, never imagining that water would even come near the top of the desks.

Needless to say, the water DID come in and up over the desk tops. The Executive Director was able to recover their server from the office, although it is wet and may be damaged. His computer experts have told him to let it dry out for a few days and they are hopeful they can retrieve the Center’s consumer records at that time.

FEMA is not allowing staff to remove anything else from the office, so all their computers, desks, file cabinets, and other supplies are totally lost, and still under water.

Since the Center was not located on a flood plain, they were not allowed to purchase flood insurance. Since there is no flood insurance, all of the contents lost in the office are not covered by any insurance.

In addition, the Center operates a transportation program for people with disabilities and other low income folks. They had three vans, and two were destroyed by the flood waters. The one remaining van is being used only to transport emergency dialysis patients. The other two vans that were lost should be covered by the auto insurance. However, they are ACCESSIBLE vans so we all know it may take a while to get them replaced as there are not a lot of accessible vans just waiting to be purchased from a car dealer lot.

Cedar Rapids, Iowa, was also hit very hard, with 100 blocks of downtown Cedar Rapids now under water. The Evert Conner Center in Iowa City serves Cedar Rapids, but they do not have an actual office in Cedar Rapids. The staff person who serves Cedar Rapids does so from his own home. He currently has several consumers that did have to go to shelters, while a number of others live outside of the flooding area so they did not need assistance in regard to the flooding at this time.

The Conner Center in Iowa City has flood waters just down the street from their office. They are also not on a flood plain, but are on the 2nd floor of a building that is up the hill from these flood waters. The ED and staff there are working to take precautions for possible flooding.

The SILC office is 2 blocks from the river, and right now the river is very close to going over top of the downtown bridges. The city insists the new flood walls will hold, but my office has been sandbagged for the last four days. The SILC office is on the 3rd floor of the building, so the flood waters will not get that high, but if they come into the building we will not be able to get into the building.

I have spoken several times today with the FEMA National Disability Coordinator, Cindy Daniels, to let her know the situation to date. She will be in contact with the FEMA folks in Waterloo to see what they can do to help the Waterloo CIL get set up in a new location to serve people.

As far as the SILC and the Centers can tell, people with disabilities are being appropriately served in shelters if they need to access a shelter. We will do our best to keep on top of this to ensure needs are being met.

I will keep you all posted as I get new information. Please keep Iowa in your thoughts and prayers.

-Dawn

Dawn E. Francis
Executive Director
Iowa Statewide Independent Living Council
300 East Locust, Suite 330
Des Moines, Iowa 50309
Office: 515-282-0275 Toll-Free Office: 1-877-466-7442
Fax: 515-282-0278 Toll-Free Fax: 1-877-771-0779
TTY: 515-282-3902 Toll-Free TTY: 1-977-469-0623
E-Mail: mailto:dawn@iowasilc.org, Website: www.iowasilc.org