City of Cedar Rapids and FEMA reaching agreements on key buildings

Sixteen months after the June 2008 flood, the city of Cedar Rapids and the Federal Emergency Management Agency are reaching an accord on the amount of flood damage at some key flood-damaged city facilities.

Greg Eyerly, the city's flood-recovery director, and FEMA both have said in recent weeks that they hope to make decisions about all the key buildings by the end of October.

On Tuesday, Eyerly said FEMA disaster awards at four city properties were “the appetizers” for expected awards yet to come this month on the Paramount Theatre, the Veterans Memorial Building, the Central Fire Station, the Public Works Building and the animal control shelter among others.

The four awards announced Tuesday by Sen. Chuck Grassley's officer are: $5.2 million for building damage at the Water Pollution Control facility; $1.1 million to repair the Fourth Avenue parkade; $1.33 million to repair the Ground Transportation Center bus terminal to its pre-flood condition (for use as something else); and $1.57 million to repair the underground parkade on May's Island.

Eyerly said he was optimistic that the city and FEMA will reach an accord on other key city buildings by Oct. 31.

To date, FEMA has obligated $195,395,730 in flood-recovery funds to the city, Eyerly said.

He noted that the city has some 200 open project worksheets on small projects that will still be negotiated over time. One non-priority project that is yet to be resolved is the flood damage to the city-owned Sinclair meatpacking site.

In its announcement on Tuesday, Grassley's office also noted that FEMA has awarded the Cedar Rapids school district $1.1 million for flood damage to the contents of the district's nutritional warehouse. FEMA also has awarded $2.4 million to the University of Iowa for costs associated with deploying sandbags, barricades, pumping equipment and labor to protect facilities from flood water.