Eyerly makes fresh push to clean up flood-damaged properties

The city of Cedar Rapids will make a fresh push to muck out and clean up flood-damaged homes and commercial properties still largely untouched after the June 2008 flood.

Greg Eyerly, the city's flood-recovery director, on Friday said he has asked representatives of neighborhood associations and the Downtown District to tally up how many such untouched properties still need cleaned up. He will have a good number by early next week.

A count by Americorps volunteers in Cedar Rapids found about 300 homes that still needed to be cleaned out, but Eyerly noted that count was in May.

Eyerly said misconceptions have played a role in some property owners leaving their flood-damaged properties as is since the flood. Some, he said, think cleaning out a property will hurt their chance for a property buyout, which isn't the case, he noted. Some landlords and owners of commercial property have not thought they had access to volunteer help, which Eyerly also said isn't true.

Eyerly said he wants to get moving on a new round of cleanups while a large number of volunteers are at the ready to help this summer.

As importantly, he said people who are returning to their homes should not have to live next to properties left as they were after the flood.

“It's a nuisance hazard for people who are coming back,” Eyerly said.

Just this week, a new community housing initiative, Block by Block, was announced that will use $2 million in private funds to get eight entire flood-damaged blocks back on their feet. One of the premises of the Block by Block effort is to find a solution for every house on a block so none are left as nuisances. Eyerly was at the Tuesday event launching the program.

On Friday, Eyerly said the city also is motivated to clean out as much as possible while the Federal Emergency Management Agency is willing to pay costs to haul the debris and put it in the landfill. FEMA, as of now, has given the city until Nov. 23 to get the task done, he said.

In the end, Eyerly said some properties will fall through the cracks for now because “there are some real hardship cases out there.” He said there have been bankruptcies, some people have moved on and some properties are owned by out of state firms.

Eyerly and Gary McClure, operations manager at the city's solid waste division, said the city continues to contract with a company to get flood debris off the curb and to the landfill. Eyerly said his expectation is that debris should be on its way to the landfill within two or three days of landing at the curb.