Head of FEMA tours Time Check neighborhood

The head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency toured the Time Check Neighborhood Tuesday, and said FEMA's next task in Cedar Rapids is to help prevent disastrous future floods.

Not everything should be rebuilt, said Craig Fugate, who's been FEMA's administrator since May, and what is should be “built back better.”

“There will always be that potential that it will happen again in the future,” he said.

Fugate (pronounced few-gate), Gov. Chet Culver, Congressman Dave Loebsack and a cloud of retainers and other politicians took a lap around a block of boarded up or skeletal homes, stopped to talk to a trio of flood victims and then held a news conference at the gutted Central Fire Station.

Fugate, the former director of Florida Emergency Management, stressed the importance of community participation in recovery.

“All disasters are local,” he said. “FEMA's not the team. We're just part of the team.”

FEMA's response to the flood in Cedar Rapids is now happening mostly behind the scenes as local and federal officials look to reconcile damage estimates and as buyouts inch closer to becoming reality for some flood victims.

Fugate is spending the rest of the day in closed sessions with local officials.

Culver, Fugate and Loebsack stopped to speak with three men at the corner of N Avenue and Fifth Street NW. The men sat on the porch of a home whose windows were boarded. Their names were Garland Davis, Rick Davis and Richard Campbell.

The Davises have lived in the home for 40 years, and aren't sure whether to rebuild, Rick Davis said.

“It's a hard call,” he said. “There's a lot of people with a lot of dreams down here.”