As flood waters recede tempers begin to flare. News agencies are starting to report on civil unrest in the midwest. Unfortunately after nearly a week away from home, and the immediate threat of standing water gone many residents are expecting to get to work rebuilding their lives. You will shortly see the news footage in which a picture was taken. This picture shows an Iowa State Police officer drawing his gun with a second officer swinging his asp. They appear to be attacking a vehicle at their check point. The driver of this vehicle allegedly charged their position in an attempt to get to his property.
Since the near future will only expose you to news stories, and interviews from upset property owners expressing their frustration, and you will not hear much from the responders themselves I would like to take a moment to give the rescuers a voice.
I would like to start by saying that flood waters are dangerous. Emergency responders are taught that even inches of moving water can knock a wood be rescuer off their feet, and quickly turn them into a victim. Just last week Americans were glued to their televisions when an engorged river washed an entire house off its foundation in Wisconsin. With those pressures and forces in mind it becomes very reasonable to believe that structures which have been overcome by between three, and twenty feet of water may be dangerous.
"Fine" you say, the flood did damage, now inspect the property and let us to our home.
Well, lets look at the inspection. Who needs to sign off on the safety of a community before you can let residents back in.
Utilities:
First we need to make sure that gas and electric services are not dangerous. This takes a representative from the utility company.
Structure:
Before your house was first occupied a city inspector signed off that the building was safe to occupy. With such significant pressures on the frame of the house it is reasonable to assume that this same type of inspection would be needed before you are allowed to occupy the property
Victim Recovery:
Since the flood overtook these communities so quickly it is impossible to account for all of the residents of any given community. Because of this uncertainty the grim task of searching for and recovering the bodies of those who did not get out of their houses before the flood waters overtook them.
With each of these disciplines needing to approve a property's safety municipal officials have put together strike teams. These teams gather together to clear properties as a group. With thousands upon thousands of properties to search it is not unreasonable to believe that it will take days to clear enough properties to allow residents back into their communities.
Many residents will argue that this delay is excessive and unreasonable. These same individuals may not realize that this year 17 Iowans have died as a result of the severe weather. Each one of these deaths is a tragedy, and municipal officials do not want to see any members of their community suffer a death after the flood waters have receded.
The natural response to this type of caution is to believe that we are being overly cautious. Unfortunately these concerns were validated when a member of one of these inspection strike teams was sucked into a collapsed building foundation. This responder narrowly missed significant injury during his attempt to help restore order to Cedar Rapids.
Having said my peace I hope that everyone will take a deep breath, and say a prayer of hope for our struggling communities.
If you look closley you can see the strike teams at work
