Donovan 'moved' by flood's devastation

CEDAR RAPIDS - It wasn't the first time he had seen the devastation of June 2008 flooding in Iowa, but Wednesday was the first time U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun said the damage firsthand.

U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Shaun Donovan talks with Northwest Cedar Rapids residents Addie, left, and Garland Davis during a tour of Cedar Rapids. Liz Martin/The Gazette

Donovan visited Cedar Rapids a year after the Cedar River flooded 10 square miles of the community and left behind a changed community. He announced $516.7 million in federal Community Development Block Grant funds, which state officials indicated will go primarily toward meeting disaster victims' housing needs, including buyouts for flood mitigation.

After walking tours of the Time Check neighborhood in northwest Cedar Rapids and the downtown, Donovan recalled seeing the destruction as he watched a copy of the video "In Deep Water: The Flood of 2008" given to him by U.S. Rep. Dave Loebsack of Mount Vernon.

"Literally no one spoke in my office," he said. "There were a dozen people there and no one spoke for what seemed like a very long time as we reflected and thought about what this city had been through."

They were moved not only by the pain and suffering of families and businesses that had lost everything, "but also inspired by your extraordinary courage and resourcefulness as you pulled through one of the darkest moments in this state's history," Donovan said.

A personal visit to the flood zone made the damage and the recovery challenge real to Donovan and others, Mayor Kay Halloran said.

"You can look at pictures, but when you see the magnitude and the devastation - and smell it - it becomes real," she said. "That impact doesn't go away."

Donovan agreed it was helpful to meet with victims and local officials, "to hear their stories and get their thoughts about the barriers to moving more swiftly."

"I'm glad he came down here. They don't get it until they come down here and look at it," Rick Davis said after Donovan, Gov. Chet Culver and U.S. Rep. Dave Loebsack visited his parents' home in the 1400 block of Fifth Street NW.

The visit and meetings with HUD officials where local official presented not only the problems they are facing, but solutions, helped them their case for more federal assistance, Linn County Supervisor Lu Barron said.

Those meetings allowed state and local officials to get down to the "nitty-gritty of what's working with CDBGs and what's not," said Phil Roeder, spokesman for Gov. Chet Culver.

The CDBG program isn't designed for disaster assistance, Donovan said. His goal is to reform the way disaster assistance is delivered.