Was there a post-flood exodus from Cedar Rapids?

CEDAR RAPIDS - The Census Bureau's once-a-decade count of America helps places get their stories straight, and the chapter on Cedar Rapids could be among Iowa's most interesting.

The Census Bureau is slated to release place-by-place population counts and other data for Iowa in February or March. One of the questions officials hope that data will answer is whether the Flood of 2008 reversed population growth in Cedar Rapids, as some suspect.

"When you see houses empty, it's natural to assume that those people are gone,” said researcher Liesl Eathington with Iowa State University's Regional Economics and Community Analysis Program, “but they might just have gone somewhere else in the (city). It will really be interesting to see if the local perceptions … will really be borne out in the numbers.”

She points to reviews of the Cedar Rapids area immediately after the flood and about a year afterward. She said they showed that the city's underlying economy remained relatively strong compared with many other parts of the state.

“And because of that, there wouldn't have been this bigger reason for a big out-migration due to the flooding,” she said.

The Census Bureau's most recent estimate of Cedar Rapids' population, published in July 2009, put the city's population at 127,764, up only 0.4 percent from the year before. Iowa's two other largest cities posted larger gains: Des Moines, up 1.5 percent, and Davenport, up 1.2 percent.

There's no question that Cedar Rapids has increased population since the last decennial census in 2000, which put the city's population at 120,758. How good is the 2009 estimate, though? Will the actual census count reveal the city's population has dropped below the estimate?

Mayor Ron Corbett suspects Cedar Rapids withstood a mass exodus after the 2008 flood akin to that of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. A significant percentage of Cedar Rapids flood victims, he said, were retirees, whom he describes as more settled and who he guesses decided to stay even if they lost their homes.

Corbett also points to the city's Personal Possessions Replacement Program, which paid up to $10,000 to nearly 2,000 flooded homeowners this year. Some 90 percent of those checks have gone to people living in the Cedar Rapids metro area, he said.

“So I think most people relocated here,” Corbett said. “We probably had a drop right after the flood, but we're showing signs of recovery.”

Stephanie Neff, assistant director of Linn County Public Health in Cedar Rapids, was among a group of local leaders on the Linn County Complete Count Committee. Their mission was to make sure that residents driven from their homes by the flood were found and counted.

Several key programs funded by federal and state dollars are tied to population, and Neff said it is always important to get residents counted. This time it was critical, she said, because of dislocations from the flood. Linn County, she said, wanted to make sure its population surpassed 200,000, up from 191,701 in 2000.

Jeff Davidson, director of Iowa City's Department of Planning and Community Development, said population numbers for cities matter greatly in terms of funding for streets, housing and neighborhoods, but he adds that the numbers matter, too, for a city's sense of itself.

Davidson notes that the 2009 census estimates showed only a handful of Iowa's 99 counties grew in population in the previous year, and those counties, he said, were located in the Des Moines metro area and the Corridor between Cedar Rapids and Iowa City.

"So yeah, we're really pleased and proud of that,” he said.

Still, the uncertainty of the Cedar Rapids population count remains.

Mark Jones, solid waste and recycling manager, reports that the city provided service to 39,275 homes and residential units as large as fourplexes in May 2008, a month before the flood. By April 10, when the Census Bureau conducted its once-a-decade population count, the city's solid-waste customer base had dropped to 38,586 households.

At the same time, Bruce Jacobs, the utilities engineering manager, reports that the city's Water Division had 41,939 residential customers in January 2008 before the flood, 40,901 in January 2009 and 41,658 in January 2010.

However, he said, about 125 of the households added since the flood came from new accounts in Robins, which uses Cedar Rapids' water supply.

ISU's Eathington said what's intriguing about Cedar Rapids is that the disruptive flood came so near the end of the decade.

“So we might not have sorted through all of the aftereffects of that yet,” she said.

City Manager Jeff Pomeranz said it is important that healthy cities continue to grow in population. So for now, Pomeranz is hanging onto the Census Bureau's 2009 estimate, which shows, despite the 2008 flood, that Cedar Rapids' population grew from 127,202 in July 2008 to 127,764 in July 2009.

At the same time, Pomeranz is looking ahead to 2011 and beyond when the city will be adding “a tremendous number of quality-of-life amenities” - a new library, convention center, riverfront amphitheater and year-round farmers market - as well as new owner-occupied homes and rentals helped along by attractive federal disaster subsidies.

The city, he said, also continues to attract jobs.

“So I think the future is bright,” Pomeranz said, “and whether we see a decrease or an increase, again, that's looking in the rearview mirror. What we need to do is look forward.

“And I think over the next 10 years, the city of Cedar Rapids will see significant growth.”