• FLOODS of '08 VIDEO
Recovery continues in Iowa from the record-setting Floods of '08.
The city already has on order HESCO barriers, tiger dams and sand bags. All temporary flood protection since there is still no permanent fix as far as a levee goes. But some concerned citizens here in Cedar Rapids have been doing their research and now they say they can eliminate flooding in Cedar Rapids all together without having to move any buildings or homes.
A group of concerned citizens in CR is trying to rebuild the river. Some of them are engineers by trade, so when it comest to explaining the process it gets a little bit complicated. They showed CBS 2 diagrams and illustrations of how to make it all come together. But really, it's pretty simple. And these guys say it's also a lot less expensive than the city's current plan: a billion dollar downtown levee and temporary flood wall.
"The city has been counseled by a consulting company that has ignored the possibilities of going up stream," says former Rockwell Collins system engineer, Don Palmer.
Palmer's plan is to build multiple concrete culverts upstream in many of the creaks that flow into the Cedar River. The stream banks would fill and retain the water so less water would flow into the Cedar.
"We would go in there and deliberately put in a water gate and control it remotely and then decide when we want to store three to five feet of water," says Palmer. This would create a watershed.
The group says a watershed would mean no flood walls, levees or reconfiguration of downtown, avoiding floods all together versus just keeping flood water contained like what is happening now in North Dakota.
"We've spent a lot of money up in the Dakotas and look, fifteen years later, now, we are having a reoccurring issue. Why didn't we do it right the first time?"
Palmer says this plan would mean not having to restructure downtown. Homeowners could rebuild without having to worry about being in the way of a levee and there's a possibility the cost of flood insurance would go down. Having a watershed upstream could change the elevation of the hundred year flood plain. Changing the plain by just one foot would mean an average savings of about $300.
This flood prevention plan would cost around 160 million dollars. Right now the group is working with local lawmakers and Rebuild Iowa to get that money and continue their study.
There will be a public meeting about this plan at People's Church at 9:45 in the morning on May 3.Rebuilding the River
