(Radio Iowa) – Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds toured northwest Iowa communities affected by floodwaters today (Monday). Her first stop was in Hawarden, which has lost its water and sewer plants and some 60 residents spent Sunday night in the shelter at the West Sioux high school. “You know we got to get the wastewater treatment stood back up, we want to make sure that the water continues to be drinkable, we need to get more wells online,” Reynolds says. “Probably the biggest need going forward we know is housing.”

Reynolds has department heads with her on the tour and says they are already discussing the housing problem. “We’re already working with the, with the team to put some really innovative programs together to meet those unmet needs to work with developers and contractors. We don’t have five years to get homes set up. We need to do it as quickly as we can,” Reynolds says. Hawarden City Administrator Gary Tucker says 190 homes in had significant damage, and another 120 had moderate to minor damage, and 100 businesses were impacted. He says there is still about one-third of the community is still without power, the water plant is back running, but it could be some time before the wastewater system is back online.

Governor Kim Reynolds (left) tours flood damage in Hawarden. (photo from Reynold’s X account)

“The homes that dump into our wastewater plant may be able to utilize it maybe towards the end of this week, but the full implementation of our wastewater plant is going to take a couple of months for sure,” Tucker says. They mayor says volunteers should follow Hawarden’s Facebook page to stay up to date with opportunities to help. The governor has requested a presidential disaster declaration, and Congressman Randy Feenstra is hopeful that will get done soon.

“Because that opens the door for helping long term places where people can stay, whether that be in hotels and other places rental units, and then also transportation,” Feenstra says. “We’ve got a lot of bridges that are going to be out, we need dollars to fix those and then get get water and sewer plants back up and all these communities. So it’s a challenge but we’ll meet the challenge and all of us together and we’ll get it done.” The governor also visited is also visiting Rock Valley, Rock Rapids, Spencer and Cherokee today (Monday).