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...month after floodwaters destroyed their home and belongings in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, the Slaymaker family - Tom, 35, Kara, 37, Samantha, 16, and Andrew, 10 - are living in a neighboring community in a mobile home provided by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). The trailer is better than the Slaymakers' previous shelter - a tent in a friend's backyard where the family camped for three weeks after the Cedar River swamped 1,300 city blocks in early June, prompting 25,000 residents to evacuate. Better, but still not home. "I'm worn out," says Tom Slaymaker. "I have no idea...
...over 340 flood-and-tornado-ravaged communities across Iowa, thousands of people remain in limbo after what many consider the state's worst natural disaster. Seventy-eight of Iowa's 99 counties are under presidential disaster proclamation. Almost 31,000 people have registered for FEMA aid; more than 9,000 homes have been damaged and 3,000 destroyed; flood repair estimates have surged (to $1.3 billion in Cedar Rapids alone). The government, however, has learned from Katrina. The FEMA "mobile homes," as the government prefers to call them, are arriving (of the 500 requested in the Cedar Rapids area...
...rebuild, including whether to seek a federal property buyout. In Oakville, where 193 of 203 homes and businesses were heavily damaged or destroyed, many of the 439 residents want FEMA to buy out the entire town. In a written statement to TIME, the agency's coordinating officer for Iowa, Bill Vogel said: "Much has been done. Much remains to be done. FEMA is in Iowa for the long haul to do everything within the agency?s power to help the state and its citizens recover...
Nearby, in rural Iowa City, cleanup recently began at Ted Thorn's house along the Iowa River, which took in over nine feet of water. "It was awful to see 20 to 30 years of stuff lying in your driveway," Thorn says, but adds, "that's over with. So we get to start over again." Thorn, who did have flood insurance, praises the disaster relief effort so far. "The folks that I've dealt with, although there's been no resolution, have been terrific," he says...
...Thorn lives part-time in two places - his daughter's house in Galesburg, Illinois, where he and his wife relocated on June 7, and "out of a suitcase" in Iowa City. "I'm going to be able to write a hell of a book about cheap motels in the Iowa City-Coralville area," jokes Thorn, who works at the University of Iowa. Repair costs at the flood-damaged campus itself are estimated at $232 million...