As he toured through his devastated hometown, Rock Valley City Administrator Tom Van Maanen reflected on the early morning of June 22, when the Rock River poured over a protective berm built during previous flooding and roared into neighborhoods.
“What we ended up getting was a flash flood on top of a flood,” Van Maanen said. “I can remember sitting in incident command and hearing all the radio calls about how the water was moving so fast. In fact, 46 people showed up with payloaders in the middle of the night to go house-to-house to rescue people by putting them in their buckets and getting them to dry land. We had one fatality — which is obviously horrible — but from what I was hearing, I expected things to be so much worse."
Rock Valley knows flooding — but nothing like 2024
The Rock River surpassed record levels set in 2014. With the ground already saturated, a new storm system dropped four more inches of rain in a short amount of time. Van Maanen said the rushing water took out a sensor so no one would likely know how high the river surged.
The water volume in 2024 was twice the water volume in 2014 — and we considered 2014 to be a very devastating flood for our community.Tom Van Maanen, Rock Valley City Administrator
“We've had more than our fair share of flooding experiences — in 2014, 2018 and 2019 — we had been accustomed to flooding events,” Van Maanen said. “But what we faced in 2024 is just something that is so outside the expectation of what the Rock River could flood. The water volume in 2024 was twice the water volume in 2014 — and we considered 2014 to be a very devastating flood for our community.”
After the natural disaster
Four months later, many Rock Valley residents still live in hotels, with relatives or in locations many miles away. Several also stayed in dozens of state-issued RVs deemed unsuitable for winter weather.
“Some people may have found a place to rent that might be 40 miles away, but their jobs are here, their kids are going to school here,” Van Maanen said. “So, it's really a big step in our recovery to get people in Rock Valley back in their own house or under their own roof.”
Some residents already cleaned up their properties, made repairs and returned. Others never can.
“When you talk about 500 houses being hit with damage, and your town's got around 1,400 homes — the extent of the damage is extreme. For sure, 140 of these homes are beyond repair," Van Maanen said. “Every day is a step forward. Some days there are bigger steps than others, but the community is rallying. We're finding ways to move forward."
Construction continues for FEMA housing
Forging forward includes crews working almost around the clock to prepare two sites for temporary, long-term housing provided by FEMA. Even after torrential moisture this summer, the area now experiences moderate drought, according to the latest U.S. Drought Monitor. Van Maanen expected about 120 manufactured homes in place by Thanksgiving for 600 residents.
“It's just horrible — very painful time to sit around and wait,” he added. “You know, some people don't have money to go somewhere else or build a new house."
The former K and K Trailer Park should be ready for a few people to move into next week. The other lodging location — the Rock Ridge Business Park — was initially planned for business expansion. Since historical and environmental studies had already taken place, Van Maanen said the land was ready for residential use.
“It does give us hope, seeing all this work they're getting done. If you go two days without coming here, you see how much farther they've gotten," he said. "Hopefully, the weather this fall will continue cooperating with us. We need this housing for our community.”
Potential buyout for storm victims
Van Maanen said the community planned to apply for a FEMA buyout of an estimated 140 homes — the specifics still needed to be worked out. But, this time around turned out substantially different than the natural disaster from a decade ago.
We will move as fast as the system allows us so we can get help to the people who are looking for it.Tom Van Maanen, Rock Valley City Administrator
“At that time, there wasn't a lot of interest in the buyout because a lot of those homes had been around for 80+ years, and that was their first time experiencing any flood damage. They had northwest Iowa pride and just wanted to do the work on their own,” Van Maanen said about the 2014 flood.
“I can remember the day that the governor was here and concluded his speech and people just couldn’t wait to get back into their homes to start fixing them up again," he said, referring to then Gov. Terry Branstad. "We only purchased two homes that time, and we really didn't push it very hard because we wanted to support the community as they rebuilt their homes.”
The city planned to submit a buyout application on Dec. 22, the first day allowed by FEMA. Van Maanen hopes for some kind of decision by the middle of February. Funding will come from federal, state and local sources.
“I love this community. But seeing the damage and pain in people's faces day after day, coming to the office and looking for answers and being unable to answer simple questions like ‘Will my house be bought out?’ is really hard,” Van Maanen said. “It almost feels cruel at times. But we're doing everything we can to have our application completed on time. So we will move as fast as the system allows us so we can get help to the people who are looking for it.”
