Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
Waverly Iowa What a Difference a Year Makes
In June of 2008 floodwaters inundated
Washington Irving Elementary School in Waverly, Iowa, causing significant damage.
Just seven weeks later, as the result of extraordinary local, state, federal and
community efforts, the school opened on schedule.
Everybody’s cooperation is really what
happened here from the school district to
FEMA, to the state Fire Marshal, to the state
agencies ‘ it’s really a joint effort to get this
building up because the one thing we had for
sure was school starts on this date and we
had to be complete, we had to have kids in
this school and we had nowhere to put them.
The cooperation of this joint effort is really the success story of what went on here.
It’s just a great accomplishment, something
you don’t see very often ‘ to be able to
transform an empty mall into classrooms and
into what the kids needed to continue their education.
The can-do Iowa spirit was most evident here and it’s heartening to see.
It was very important that the community be stabilized by having their school up and
running by the start of the school year. It was very important that they would feel
comfortable again with their kids being able to go to school this fall.
It’s really cool here there’s a lot of space and
we just have so much fun at recess since we
have bigger soccer courts and the big football
field and kickball and all that stuff. It’s just
really cool to be in a different building than everyone else was last year.
And that’s throughout the whole building.
There are two lower levels below this, so all
told there was a total of about 18 feet of water
in the lower level, the next lower level and the
first-floor level. The problem is our cafeteria,
our kitchen ‘ we had a bakery and a kitchen
downstairs ' and that was completely
submerged. The other problems is, on the
main floor where all of our actual classrooms
were, all the cabinets and everything had all
soaked up’ the biggest worry that we had and
one of the warnings we received was that this
water was contaminated because the city lift stations all failed.
FEMA has done two things for us that I think
are most meaningful to provide us with a new
school facility. Through their help, we were
able to move from our flood-damaged building
that was unusable and uh we were able to
move from that building to this temporary
facility which was a warehouse essentially and
transform it into a five six building for two
hundred and fifty four kids and forty five staff
members in fifty nine days so the community
kind of stepped forward. FEMA has helped us
in as much as they have provided not only the
expertise to be able to do that but some funds
as well. That is the first thing. The second
thing now, since our bond referendum you
know we have been working uh just uh hand
in hand with FEMA ever since the flood and
uh there have been numerous times that I
have called and said weekly to be exact called
and said ya know what do you think the next
step should be and how can you help us with
this. We are receiving some FEMA funds to
rebuild a portion of the new building as well so
I think that their help for us has really been on two very very important levels.
On April 7, 2009 the people of Waverly, Iowa passed an $18.925 million bond referendum
by a 65.3% approval margin to rebuild the schools destroyed by the flooding.
Additionally, a grant from FEMA in the amount of $9.375 million for the relocation and
restoration of Washington Irving School has entered the final approval process.
For more information visit www.FEMA.gov