Lt. Gov. Judge reflects on a year of flood recovery

Iowa Lt. Gov. Patty Judge (right) visited with flood victims following a ceremony in downtown Cedar Rapids Saturday that commemorated the one-year anniversary of the massive 2008 floods.

CEDAR RAPIDS — The one-year anniversary of unprecedented flooding in Iowa’s second-largest city was commemorated in a ceremony on Saturday just steps away from the now calm Cedar River and massive piles of debris. While state and local officials stopped to remember the state’s largest natural disaster, they also looked to the future.

Lt. Gov. Patty Judge, who spoke at the ceremony and serves as Gov. Chet Culver’s point-person for disaster recovery, said she continues to experience a host of emotions.

“Certainly I have pride in the city and the people and what they’ve been able to accomplish and the way they’ve pulled together and worked so hard,” Judge told the Iowa Independent when the ceremony was complete. “What they’ve been able to accomplish is really quite remarkable. When you look at other disasters in other parts of the country, this type of recovery just doesn’t happen this quickly.

“Of course, I also felt the frustration that the people feel. And the governor and I understand that. We sympathize, and, believe me, you’ll never know all of the back story on getting to where we are today with federal money and state programs to try to assist — things that didn’t exist a year ago that we’ve been able to accomplish.

“I’m also sad. This has been a wonderful ceremony, but there is a sense of sadness yet here, of loss.”

Officials at all levels of government, including U.S. Rep. Dave Loebsack, praised the progress that has been made in Cedar Rapids but lamented the continued frustrations of flood victims.

Judge acknowledges that there are critics of the way recovery has been handled, but said she also believes that the decisions made were the right ones.

“We know that there continue to be some factions that believe there should have been a special session [of the legislature] called,” she said. “I’m still not sure what would have been accomplished by a special session that was not accomplished.”

Gov. Chet Culver, in consultation with an executive council, had authority to use ending balance money to address immediate needs following the floods and tornadoes that affected Iowans.

“We felt like we had assistance flowing as rapidly as would have happened otherwise,” Judge said. “We feel like that we did what we needed to do and that we made the right decisions.”

One of the first formal meetings on flood recovery once the legislature reconvened was held in Judge’s office. She said the entire Linn County delegation was present and pressing for assistance.

“Believe me, you don’t want to try to deter [Sen.] Rob Hogg or [Rep.] Tyler Olson or any of the rest of them when they are on a mission,” she said.

In addition to giving credit to the Linn County state delegation, Judge also had high praise for the communication and logistical efforts required to evacuate Mercy Medical Center during the flood.

“It was such a team effort,” she said. “The idea of evacuating an entire critical care hospital and all of the patients from newborn babies to heart attack patients and everything in between, and doing it as quickly as it actually was done is an incredible task. People in public health and emergency management just can’t fathom it.”

Judge, as well as many others speaking at the ceremony, also took a moment to thank the members of the Iowa National Guard who were deployed to Cedar Rapids to help with securing and inspecting flood zones.

“Just as [Cedar Rapids] Mayor Kay Halloran said today, my thanks will always go out to the Iowa National Guard. They stepped up and there was, I think, a sense of reassurance and calmness when the Guard arrived.”

The evidence that good decisions were made “on every level,” according to Judge, is the fact that not one life was lost in the Cedar Rapids floods.

“We couldn’t stop the water. If we could have, we would have. I don’t know what we could have done differently to prevent this,” she said.

Judge also pledged that the governor’s office will stand with city and county officials throughout the continued recovery effort.

“We certainly want to stay with the city and the county as they think about long-term preparedness and mitigation,” she said. “If there are things we need to do to prevent this type of flooding again in Cedar Rapids, we need to do that. We’ll be with them. We’ll be helping with that.”