Tough Decisions in Pacific Junction

Many communities were pummeled by last year’s massive flooding event in the Midwest. For some of them, the floods came and went within a few days and the communities turned to recovery efforts. However, for some communities, the floodwaters stayed in their community for several weeks. Yes, citizens of some communities had water in their domiciles for much of the summer. This includes the small town of Pacific Junction, Iowa.

Looking East on Lincoln in Pacific Junction – Image by Iowaryan

Prior to the floods of 2019, Pacific Junction was a community of 471 residents (2010 Census) in Southwest Iowa along Interstate 29. It started as a terminus of three different railroads that eventually merged into the Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy, which is now Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF). The community has had its ups and downs over the years, but the residents have generally held together.

On Came the Floods

In 2011 flood waters swept into Pacific Junction and stuck around for months until releases from Gavins Point Dam subsided. But the waters came back in the spring of 2019 with a vengeance. Water levels as high as 9 to 10 feet inundated the area. Houses were filled up to the eves with water for several weeks. At that point, there’s nothing left to do but completely gut the house and essentially start from scratch. The few businesses left in the town suffered as well, having to shut their doors until repairs could be made.

Making things tougher, residents weren’t allowed in to see their properties for several weeks. Every time it appeared as though the flood waters would recede enough, another onslaught of rain would hit.

In Walks FEMA

Many people unfortunately think that after a disaster the Federal Emergency Management Agency will be their savior. They believe that FEMA will walk into town and immediately start writing checks to cover the full amount of repairs. Yet, that’s not how it works.

Many of the homes were completely ruined from months of occupation by flood waters. This wasn’t just replacing the carpet, along with some drywall and insulation repairs up to the water line. What was required was a full gut job. They had to clean out weeks of mud and debris inflow. Open the walls and throw out the soaked drywall. They knew that all the insulation and electrical were trashed. HVAC systems were likely ruined as well. But don’t forget the mold removal as well. You’re almost down to only the framing in some cases.

However, FEMA funding for repairs is often limited to roughly $34,900. This is not nearly enough to cover the costs to completely gut a home and rebuild. In this mostly working-class community a majority of the residents didn’t have the money to rebuild, even with FEMA assistance.

There were approximately 220 homes in the community and roughly 150 of the owners wanted out. Rather than taking a check to repair their houses, they wanted the other option available through FEMA. These residents wanted to take up FEMA’s offer to buy out their properties at market rate so they could restart their lives elsewhere.

However, these feelings were not unanimous. A number of residents had lived there for several decades. Pacific Junction was their home. Meetings were tense and often turned into shouting matches. There was plenty of emotion and no clear solution that effectively served everyone.

The Double-Edged Sword of FEMA Assistance

Why were the residents who wanted to remain so adamantly against others taking FEMA assistance? It wasn’t impacting them. Or was it? When FEMA post-disaster buyback funding is used on a property, structures on the property have to be demolished. The land is then cleared. It is then required to be used as open space in perpetuity.

Hence, there isn’t a private owner of that property paying property taxes. So, potentially over 2/3 of the previously tax paying properties in the community wouldn’t be paying to repair roads and other damaged infrastructure. Additionally, the Pacific Junction or Mills County was also on the hook to maintain that open space…forever.

Check out FEMA’s Property Acquisitions FAQ

To complicate things further, the remaining 1/3 of the tax paying properties would not be clustered together. There becomes a visual brokenness of the remaining houses spread randomly over the expanse of the city limits. It doesn’t feel as much like a community anymore. But there is also the infrastructure. The linear feet of roads and utility lines per house served shoots up significantly. It’s only logical that the cost of maintenance of this critical infrastructure increases per household as well.

Delays

Unfortunately, the governmental processes were not swift. Soon, some residents simply left. They didn’t have the financial wherewithal to pay the mortgage on a property they couldn’t live in, along with the payment for where they were able to live. So there was a rush to purchase a new property elsewhere before their credit went south from not making payments on their original house. Soon those houses were neglected. They sat in the purgatory of the foreclosure process while nobody was around to clean up the property, to keep the lawn mowed. Now multiply that scenario many times over and your community has a mess on it’s hands.

A Ray of Hope

On January 24, 2020 Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds informed the embattled community that $3 million would be allotted to the town for buyouts. This was significant as it would keep 15-20 properties from being bought out with FEMA funding. Depending on the status of the lots closest to the town’s core, the use of these funds on those lots would allow these properties to be redeveloped in the future.

Although the redevelopment of Pacific Junction will still be limited by the loss of roughly 130 lots to FEMA-mandated open space, keeping that core will be key. As discussed earlier, the permanent voids created by the properties that accept FEMA funding can create a disjointed community with a high cost to provide services. Any help that they can get to mitigate this potential result would gladly be accepted by those who decide to remain in the community.

Conclusion

The community of Pacific Junction certainly has an uncertain future. No one within the community could have predicted this would happen. The residents are essentially surrounded by levies and raised railroad tracks. Even during the epic floods that devastated Iowa in 1993, Pacific Junction was virtually untouched. But now many of the communities residents are fleeing and it is doubtful they will see an influx of new residents with the floods of 2019 fresh in the minds of many.

Similar communities throughout the Midwest should take the story of Pacific Junction into strong consideration. Your emergency management representatives may have run drills on what to do when such an event happens. But have you contemplated the aftermath and how the decisions of others can affect the recovery of your community?