Flood Anniversary is a Work Day
Written by: Doug Neumann, President of the Cedar Rapids Downtown District
Tradition marks wedding anniversaries with certain material gifts. The most remembered are the first anniversary (paper), the 25th (silver) and the 50th (gold). Wikipedia tells us the third anniversary of a marriage has traditionally been the “leather” anniversary. I’m not sure how many modern couples still follow those traditions, nor how well those traditions translate to other anniversaries. But in reflecting on the importance of today – the third anniversary of a 31-foot crest of the Cedar River that changed the face of downtown and this proud community’s core neighborhoods –
the connection to leather isn’t hard to make. That’s a material often associated with hard work – the leather of work boots and tool belts; the leather of thick work gloves; and even the leathery skin of working men and women who ply their trade in the sun, wind and rain rather than climate-controlled offices.
It’s taken all of that hard work, and more, to get Cedar Rapids to where it is today. We’ve made progress that far outpaces all national benchmarks for disaster recovery. We were supposed to have suffered business failures of at least 55 percent by now. Instead, just 18 percent have not made it to this anniversary, and with numerous new business starts,
we’re at more than 90 percent of the jobs and businesses we had pre-flood. We were supposed to be suffering population loss, but more people are looking to move in. We were supposed to be losing our spirit by now, and yet signs of resiliency and pride continue to emerge, block-by-block throughout the neighborhoods.
Amid the progress, though, there’s still a strong degree of chaos and uncertainty, and of unfinished business. We know that disaster recovery is a decade-long endeavor, and with just three years behind us, we’re technically still in the early stages of making our way back. Right now, it looks and feels like we’re in a construction zone, not a rebuilt community.
But things are on the right track. We’re on pace to do a quarter century of core neighborhood development in five years, and that dramatic new face of Cedar Rapids is just
starting to take shape.
This anniversary has not been marked with a lot of verbosity or celebration. I enjoyed the Gazette features over the weekend, and I’m glad to see the City marking the anniversary with a low-key yet poignant rededication of the Lady Liberty statue on May’s Island.
But that’s about it, and that’s maybe appropriate for where we are right now. On the leather anniversary of the flood, this is a work day for this community.
No comments have been posted for this item.