Flood director makes plea for social equality in awarding flood protection systems

Cedar Rapids flood recovery director Greg Eyerly made an impassioned plea Thursday for social equality in the awarding of federal flood protection systems.

Speaking at the first meeting of the Regional Flood Risk Management Team, which includes federal and state officials from Iowa, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota and Missouri, Eyerly said if the Cedar River flood of 2008 had “happened in Malibu, they would already have a flood-protection system in place.”

Addressing a group that included several high-ranking Army Corps of Engineers officials, Eyerly said the Corps formula that requires property protected to be worth at least as much as the cost of the flood-protection is misguided.

It discriminates against hard-working people who can afford only modest homes and should be based more on lives disrupted than on the cost of property destroyed, he said.

Success for Cedar Rapids' flood recovery effort, Eyerly said, would be a cost-benefit analysis that treats the working class with the same regard as more affluent and politically connected communities.

Brig. Gen. Michael Walsh, commander of the Corps' Mississippi Valley Division, said the formula is dictated by National Economic Development guidelines and that any flood protection project would have to conform with those rules.