(Radio Iowa) – Residents of the Riverside neighborhood in Sioux City expressed frustration with the city’s flood response at the city council meeting. Susan Bart was the first to speak at Monday’s meeting. “Where we’re our city leaders when we’re in time of need? I am flooded out I got three lots along the Big Sioux in my backyard,” She says. “I’m flooded out and I had a sewer leak prior to the flooding. On Sunday, MidAmerican turned off my gas, so they were well aware of what was going on. Yet no sirens, no nothing.” Steve Kurally was awake and started warning neighbors as the floodwaters rose. He says they could have used more warning from the city.
“I don’t know who is in charge of that, but that really could have been used some improvement. I’m not here to, by no means to criticize anybody I think in the city, they came a long way through that flood. I mean they were working diligently trying to build the temporary levees and man and the pumps and all of that,” he says. Bonnie Whitlock was emotional as she talked about he flood damage. “I’ve lost two cars. I’ve lost my babies pictures and everything if I would have had some warning, I could have gotten that stuff up,” Whitlock says. “I’ve lost everything in my home. All my drywall is gone. All my flooring is gone. My furniture, my appliances, everything is gone. My husband and I are just retired.”
Mayor Bob Scott says he will meet soon with City Manager Bob Padmore to discuss what happened in Riverside and how they can move forward. “Let’s just say that I’ve told Bob that after this quiets down with his staff in a couple of weeks we need to have a real sit down and talk about what we did,”Scott says. “I think we were in denial that river was going to go as high as what did unfortunately it just kept rising and rising.”
Scott said he expected to be back out at the flood scene today (Tuesday)
Deere is eliminating more than 200 jobs at its Davenport plant and another 99 in Dubuque at the end of August, and more than 500 in East Moline, Illinois at the end of September. Deere announced earlier this year it’s cutting more than 800 jobs at facilities in Waterloo, Ottumwa and the Des Moines metro. Naig says the souring economic effects aren’t just limited to the ag equipment sector. “That’s also playing out now in some of these announcements that you’re hearing made about even meat processing or manufacturing,” he says. “So, you try to take all that in and look at it holistically, but I do think that it’s certainly sending some signals about a softening in the economy or at least a lack of confidence in the economy, and those are things what we need to be addressing as a country.”
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