• FLOODS of '08 VIDEO
Owners of boat houses on the Cedar River are stuck in between the city and the Department of Natural Resources. Now Ellis harbor looks like a mess. Owners of boat houses say while some work is being done there are still homes that sit without any work being done at all.
Boat house after boat house sit overturned, smashed, many of them are destroyed.
"I saw this house get hit multiple times by other houses going ten miles an hour," says boat house owner, Jim Caas. Caas though says he is making the needed repairs in order to keep his house afloat and livable. Some other owners are fixing up as well. But a few boat houses sit, not floating; rather they are on pavement, waiting for their owners to decide what to do. Caas says a lot of people that have houses that need a lot of work done to them are waiting for someone to tell them if they invest the money in repairs it will not be a waste. Because right now the DNR still has not decided what they are going to do.
Up until the flood of 2008, Cedar Rapids' officials thought they were the ones that enforced the rules on their section of river. But DNR authorities stepped in and said that's not the case. Now all boat houses at Ellis Harbor are going to have to abide by new rules, rules that are not even written yet. The uncertainty leaves many boat house owners scared and asking questions.
"Are those regulations going to say are they going to say that some boats are too wide too tall too long? Or are they going to be just a copy of what the city of cedar rapids already had who knows?" asks Jim Caas.
Boat Houses in Limbo
