(Radio Iowa) – Several Iowa cities were swamped with flood waters, but Iowa Workforce Development director Beth Townsend says the flooding didn’t significantly impact unemployment numbers. “We only saw a few hundred claims total in the flooded areas at the at the peak, and it’s, you know now it’s down probably closer to one hundred or less,” Townsend says. The claim numbers didn’t go up after the initial filings. She says they’ve continued to decline pretty steadily and fairly quickly. Townsend says there was the opportunity for some to make claims that normally wouldn’t.

“When the President declares a national disaster area, then individuals who might not otherwise be qualified for unemployment, i-e because they’re self employed, would be eligible to receive benefits. And then the Feds reimburse the state trust fund for the amount of the disaster related unemployment claims,” Townsend says. “So actually, disaster related claims do not hurt our trust fund balance, because we’re going to get that money back from the feds.”

Townsend says the floodwaters did not hit any of the larger cities where there are large concentrations of workers, and that is why unemployment didn’t see the impact.