When the Little Sioux River hit record levels, half of Correctionville’s 300 homes ended up with some damage — including Mayor Ken Bauer’s.
“It was a nightmare. I was just mayor for six months when the flood happened,” Bauer said. “For three days, they kept saying, 'Well, it will only get to here. It'll only get to there.' And it kept going — and it kept going.”
About four inches of sewage invaded Bauer’s basement.
“Well, thankfully, my kids got it all cleaned up for me when I was working at City Hall,” Bauer said.
After the initial shock, Bauer said his town pulled together for the main clean-up that took about a month.
“We did much better than many other towns,” Bauer said. “We had a lot of small towns around here help out. They put down their hammers, axes, their grudges and were willing to come — and we would do the same for them.”
Help for flood victims
The focus turned to recovery. Woodbury County’s Long-Term Recovery Group held a multi-agency resource center at Correctionville's Community Center on Tuesday. Flood victims met face-to-face with FEMA representatives and several nonprofits, including the Red Cross, Salvation Army, Community Action Agency, Catholic Charities and Iowa Legal Aid.
“Iowans are resilient,” said Ray Villarreal, Iowa Legal Aid grants administrator and outreach coordinator. “Just seeing folks navigating the hardest moment of their life, whether they rent or own, and just seeing the resiliency of powering through and saying, ‘Hey, there's somewhere else to go from here.’ They just rise to the occasion.”
Iowa Legal Aid can assist with crises that pop up after a natural disaster — ranging from FEMA denials, insurance claims, contractor fraud, landlord-tenant disputes, unemployment benefits and other financial issues.
“If you fall behind financially, creditors might come after you. You might be facing garnishment or losses because of your debt," Villarreal said. "So again, those are things that we want people to give us a call for. Sometimes it's information overload, so we're just here to help try to calm nerves and help them redirect into the resources.”
Assessing the damage
Woodbury County Emergency Management Director Mike Montino said officials are still trying to calculate damages countywide. Besides Correctionville, flooding impacted another 150 homes in Sioux City’s Riverside neighborhood and 30 properties in the tiny town of Smithland located downstream along the Little Sioux River.
“Those numbers are still coming together,” Montino said. “I would guess, probably in the coming weeks to coming months, we should have more of a defined amount as some of the invoices and repair costs come in, particularly from the public infrastructure side.”
Montino said Iowa was very fortunate to get state and federal aid activated quickly — plus the outreach of local entities.
“And I think what I really want to say here is just how proud I am, particularly our community members, our nonprofits and our government organizations for pooling together and putting forth the effort that they did as part of the response and recovery process,” Montino said.
Flood victims find limitations with FEMA assistance
Even with support and funding, not everyone will recoup their losses, including Correctionville’s own mayor.
“We got some money from FEMA, and it didn't cover it all. We also had sewage insurance and it still didn't cover all of it,” Mayor Baurer said. "I kept telling people, don't expect them to make you be 100% because that's not what they're here to do. They'll help you barely back on your feet, and that's it. So I knew what to expect — but there were a lot of disappointed people."
The deadline to apply for FEMA assistance in Woodbury and 14 other western Iowa counties is Oct. 22.