3. Iowa City and the Flood by Richard A. Fosse
Times of flooding make the community come together. Many communities work together on similar goals. These goals are conceived to help the whole survive, especially once human needs become a target. One of the main factors in flood safety is advanced planning. Advanced planning can be seen as the government’s job because it’s their job to provide a number of safeties to the people: protect the safety of residents, safeguard critical infrastructure, share information with the public, and where possible, provide resources to assist residents in their preparations for the flood.
Iowa City, Coralville, the University of Iowa, and Johnson County are bound communities. They are bound together by an interdependence created by the risk of similar threat and limited resources.
I’m going to outline the events that transpired in Iowa City in 2008. Similar event happened in the other areas mentioned. This will give a good idea of what happens during a large flood.
June 3, 2008
-Call from U.S. Army Core of Engineers say that the weather
conditions are right for there to be a flood. This news was not very
surprising.
June 4, 2008
-Flood preparation starts
-Flood
size was unclear at this point
-At this point communication is highly important
-Iowa
City is located just downstream from a dam that regulates the release of water,
so response time is increased in the area
-Making
sure that the residents have updated information of floods progression
June 5, 2008
-Sandbagging and knowledge
-making
sure that residential and business areas were being sandbagged
-making
sure that the sandbagging was being done correctly because improper sandbagging
is a huge waste of resources
-updating
people online on events, and giving links to correct sandbagging techniques
-Created an Emergency Command Post/ Emergency Operations
Center to manage all flood related efforts
-meant
to keep efforts organized and informed
-Organizations
like the National Guard, Iowa Department of Transportation, Red Cross, and
Salvation Army were deployed through these centers
- The modeled
used to structure these centers was developed by the Department of Homeland Security
and is called the National Incident Management System (NIMS). This system was
developed after 9/11 to address how the relief for a large single disaster
should be organized.
June 6, 2008
-The Corps predicted that the water would go over the emergency
spillways.
-this
meant that the flood would be large
-the need to inform the
public increased drastically
June 9, 2008
-The Corps predicted a peak discharge of 28,000 cubic feet
per second (cfs) 1 on June 17
-this was
close to the peak of the flood of 1993
June 10, 2008
-Corps increased the prediction to 32,000 cubic feet per
second (cfs) 1 on June 16
-this
was substantially higher than the peak in 1993
-This made planning much harder because planners couldn’t
rely on history anymore
-new
plans had to be made so that infrastructure wasn’t destroyed
-people
had to be informed of the dangers of higher water levels
June 11, 2008
-Prediction was raised to 33,000 cubic feet per second (cfs)
1
-fear
of other storm systems after flooding
-how
would the area handle additional rain if another storm system hit right after
June 12, 2008
-The most intense period of rainfall
-Iowa River was rising faster than expected
-evacuations
of certain communities, Parkview Terrace
-sandbagging
was effective but not for the amounts being predicted in some areas
-Once
Parkview Terrace flooded the one road connecting the community was cut-off
making evacuation difficult
-Peak prediction changed to 40,000 cfs on June 17
-this was
a huge concern because it put critical infrastructure in jeopardy
-drinking
water
-resource
had to be placed in areas where protection was feasible
-places
where nothing could be done were shut off so that damage could be limited
June 13, 2008
-All communities were focused on the floods
-Calls to the centers increased substantially (from 250
calls a day to 3,043 calls a day)
-Flood peak prediction was raised (AGAIN!) to 44,000 cfs
June 14, 2008
-Huge volunteer turnout at Iowa City neighborhoods,
Coralville, and the University of Iowa
-sandbagging
effort to help secure the city
-day
was filled with much rain and ended with a tornado warning
June 15, 2008
-Flood peaked at 6:30 am at 41,100 cfs
-this
was slightly less than the 500 year flood
-This day was a turning point. It was the first measured flood
peak of the 2008 flood. In 1993 there were a total of 10 peaks in 35 days.
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