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Grant Wood AEA Holds Open House Celebrating Flood Recovery
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The damaged main office of Grant Wood Area Education Agency’s main office at 4401 Sixth Street SW in Cedar Rapids has been restored following the 2008 flood. The agency facility held an open house and Chamber of Commerce ribbon cutting on Wednesday, Nov. 4, 2009, 2:30-7:00 p.m. Agency personnel were on hand to take guests on tours of the revitalized facility.
To date, the agency has submitted $3,176,000 in claims to FEMA for clean-up, contents, building repairs and temporary facilities costs. Clean up costs from the flood accounted for $1,274,974 of this total. It is expected that FEMA will cover 90 percent of the flood recovery costs with the state department of homeland security providing the other 10 percent.
In addition to facility repairs, the agency incurred approximately $345,000 in losses of furniture, partitions, equipment, and supplies. That total included contents at the Sixth Street facility plus the Linn County Youth Shelter classroom, which is run by Grant Wood AEA. VAST Science kits, which were stored at the Cedar Rapids Schools warehouse, were also lost in the flood and are a part of the damaged supplies list.
The facility received approximately a foot of flood water during last summer’s epic flooding. As a result, all drywall throughout the facility was removed up to a four-foot height. Carpeting and flooring were all removed and replaced.
Agency staff successfully moved all of the agency’s library holdings, computers and servers out of harm’s way prior to the flood. Insurance appraisers have estimated this fast action by staff saved taxpayers several million dollars in repairs and replacements.
Following the flood event, parts of the Sixth Street facility were cleaned, and temporary operations were restored. This included the agency’s media center which has over 41,000 items in its holdings and the agency’s computer services department.
The media center was temporarily relocated to the agency’s conference center, and a month after the flood, the department began delivering materials to schools. The media center was one of the first areas restored after the flood, and the department dismantled and reorganized its holdings again this past summer.
The computer services department provides payroll services to 19 school districts, including Cedar Rapids schools, and five non public schools in its service area. It also serves an additional 33 schools across the state of Iowa. Following the flood, the payroll group was a day late on processing payroll for only one school district throughout the entire flood event and recovery.
For more information, contact George Held, Communications Supervisor, Grant Wood AEA. 319-399-6714.
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