Residents of Cedar Rapids neighborhood seek answers regarding storm sewer system

CEDAR RAPIDS - Frazzled residents in the 1500 block of A Avenue NE and B Avenue NE near Coe College asked the City Council Tuesday why the city's storm sewer system failed them so dramatically during heavy rains and flash flooding of a week ago.

Christa Williams, who told the council that she had lived at 1516 A Ave. NE for 42 years, said the flash flood of last week caved in part of her home's foundation and made the house unlivable.

'I'm completely wiped out,” she said.

She said she could never go back to the house.

Just down the street, Gerald Willey, at 1540 A Ave. NE, had a collapsed foundation wall, too. Willey told the council that he had put $35,000 into the house so his college-student granddaughter had a place to live, but now the house is likely a total loss, he said.

He said the neighbors feel as if they may need to sue the city to get to the bottom of why the city's storm system didn't protect them.

Pauline Luerkens, of 1523 B Ave. NE, has been in the neighborhood for some 20 years, and she said she remembered the city putting in new storm sewers 'you could drive a truck through.”

'I don't understand how the sewers flooded,” she said.

At the end of Tuesday's council meeting, Mayor Ron Corbett asked several city department heads to huddle with the flooded neighbors to talk about what caused the flooding and what help there now might be.

Afterward, Dave Elgin, the city's public works director, said that he would put together a city engineering team to examine the storm sewer and sanitary sewer systems in the 1500 blocks of A and B avenues NE to see if there were 'unusual blockages or obstacles” that could have made the systems function poorly.

At the same time, he said this spot is a low-lying area that was confronted with an 'extreme rainfall” that likely caused the sewer system to fill up and become unable to take all that was coming at it.

Elgin said basements in other spots of the city took on water, too.

By Tuesday afternoon, city inspectors had slapped notices on most of the houses in the 1500 block of A Avenue NE, identifying a few of the 12 houses as unsafe to occupy and others as safe for limited occupancy.

Allan and Karen Butler, 1522 A Ave. NE, said Tuesday they had been able to restore electricity to their house, but they still had plenty of damage from flood water that had filled their basement and climbed into the first floor.

Karen Butler said they were afraid to stay in the house because Christa Williams's house right next door had begun to lean in their house's direction.

The Butlers live across A Avenue NE from the backside of McDonald's and the Hy-Vee Food Store, and the parking lots on First Avenue NE. Allen Butler said the flash flood of a week ago came at his house 'like white-water rapids” from the direction of First Avenue NE.

An engineering technician at Rockwell Collins, Allen Butler wasn't sure what if any financial help might be available to his family to renovate the house. He said he makes too much to qualify for an income-based, $5,000 state disaster grant, and his home insurance doesn't cover flooding.

In his comments to the City Council, Gerald Willey told council members that they should consider the flood-hit neighbors on A and B avenues NE as union members and themselves as union bosses. The neighbors pay their dues twice a year in the form of property taxes, and now it's time for the bosses to deliver for their members, Willey said.