By Dar Danielson (Radio Iowa)
The director of the Iowa DOT gave the state Transportation Commission an update on flood recovery efforts during their meeting Tuesday.
Director Scott Marler says one of the big jobs was helping haul debris away. He says Spencer for example had 5,000 homes damaged by the flooding and needed to have the material pulled out of those homes hauled away. The DOT brought in its large dump trucks and other equipment to help move the Spencer material to a dump site. “In total we hauled over 2,800 loads of removed material to this location,” he says.
Marler says the floodwater kept people away for some courthouses, so they couldn’t renew driver’s licenses. “We actually mobilized some of our remote issuance kits, and our staff in one example, went up to Clay County and they started issuing replacement licenses in Clay County with our employees temporarily operating in the Sheriff’s Department to issue those licenses,” Marler says.
Marler says they also helped out with inspecting flooded buildings. “Some of our engineering staff had gotten a brief training with the Department of Inspections and Appeals. We actually were able to assist them in evaluating structures,” Marler says. “We sent five of our staff up to do that over the Fourth of July holiday.”
They also worked on getting flooded roadways back open. DOT Chief Engineer Tony Gustafson says at the height of the flooding there were 49 highway closures. Some highways had multiple closings. “Rapid fire rundown here, Iowa 3, Iowa 4, Iowa 9, Iowa 10, Iowa 12, Iowa 15. U.S. 18, U.S. 20, Iowa 31, U.S. 59, Iowa 60, U.S. 71, U.S. 75, and U.S. 169, as well as Interstates 29 and 680 north of Council Bluffs,” he says.
Gustafson says there were three highways still closed as of Tuesday. They include U.S. 18 west of Spencer. “Iowa 4 south of Emmetsburg, that is still under water. That bridge there at the Des Moines River. The Des Moines River is not going down as quickly as the the Little Sioux is,” he says. “We still don’t know what the damage is there on Iowa 4 south of Emmetsburg. And then they are working on U.S. 75 south of Rock Rapids.” He says they are still working on a culvert that was blown out on U.S. 75.
