Branstad: Iowa flood damage at $15.5 million and rising

DES MOINES - State officials said Monday they expect to request a presidential disaster declaration for parts of Iowa hit by severe flooding and weather damage that likely has impacted at least $15.5 million in public infrastructure, done significant crop damage and damaged up to 150 homes.

Gov. Terry Branstad already has issued state disaster declarations for 18 Iowa counties and Mark Schouten, director of the Iowa Homeland Security and Emergency Management Department, said he was optimistic a similar federal designation will follow after damage assessments this month are concluded with Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) officials.

Schouten said the preliminary estimates from weather-related problems that have hit Iowa this month top $15.5 million for public buildings, bridges, infrastructure and roads, noting there are still secondary roads underwater 'so we don't know how much damage they've sustained.”

'That does not include the homes, it does not include the crop damage,” he said.

After touring parts of western Iowa, Branstad said he saw considerable hail damage in southwestern Iowa and fields under floodwaters in northwest Iowa - in areas that previously were the state's driest - but he noted those damage assessments will be made by federal Farm Service Agency officials.

'We will have substantial crop damage separate and above what we've talked here today,” Branstad told reporters at his weekly news conference due to above-average rainfall in June. Flooding concerns stretch from the Missouri River to the Mississippi River and water levels at three reservoirs at Coralville, Red Rock and Saylorville are being monitored but still have considerable capacity, Schouten said.

Weather forecasts appear to give Iowa a 'reprieve” from rains for two or three days that should allow water levels to drop without further damage, Schouten noted, but he said considerable ground saturation exists that make parts of Iowa vulnerable to future flooding should additional precipitation occur.

'It's a tough time nonetheless for many of our fellow Iowans as they deal with the devastation and the destruction of their homes and of their communities,” said Schouten, who noted that some residents have had to be evacuated and between 100 and 150 homes have been damaged or destroyed by rising water.

The state's Homeland Security and Emergency Management Department director praised the work of volunteers and county emergency officials who worked with the state to coordinate resource delivery of nearly 270,000 sandbags, 245 tons of sand, 'rolls and rolls” of plastic sheeting for temporary levies and moved high-capacity pumps 'like chess pieces” to remove floodwaters.

'We saw how despair brings out the goodness in Iowans,” said Schouten, who noted that an army of volunteers turned out to help in sandbagging and other efforts in the Rock Valley. 'We've witnessed the Iowa spirit first hand.”

Branstad and Schouten expressed optimism the flooding situation around Iowa would not swell into the disasters that hit parts of the state in 1993 and 2008 but they said much depends on further precipitation.

'It all depends upon where the weather goes from here,” Branstad said. 'If it gets better and generally when you get into July it starts getting drier, this looks like a wetter-than-normal year but I guess the future will determine whether it's going to become the kind of a critical situation. So we're hopeful but we need to be prepared for the worst as well.”

In the past week, Branstad has issued disaster declarations for the following counties due to flooding and storm damage: Buena Vista, Cedar, Cherokee, Clay, Dickinson, Franklin, Hancock, Ida, Kossuth, Lyon, Osceola, Palo Alto, Plymouth, Pocahontas, Sac, Sioux, Woodbury and Wright.

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