2,000 CWS Emergency Cleanup Buckets arrived in Detroit August 19 for distribution by the American Red Cross to survivors cleaning up from the August 11 flash floods. Buckets were quickly distributed in several locations. Photo: American Red Cross
Seven inches of rain every day for four or five days left communities across northwest Iowa waterlogged in June. Church World Service worked with local partners to get hundreds of CWS Emergency Cleanup Buckets out quickly – and within easy driving distance – to homeowners who needed the supplies to clean up their flooded basements.
CWS dropped off buckets with five county emergency management coordinators: 75 buckets in Hampton, 120 in Johnston, 36 in Algona, 120 in Iowa and 200 in Rock Rapids, Iowa. Then coordinators moved the buckets even deeper into flooded communities.
For example, 75 CWS Emergency Cleanup Buckets were delivered to Franklin County Emergency Management Coordinator Thomas Craighton in Hampton, Iowa. Some buckets were distributed from the county law enforcement center in Hampton, but most were taken by Lions Club members to city halls across the county.
“We heard two comments over and over,” Craighton said. “People appreciated having cleanup supplies that were already put together. And they appreciated being able to get the buckets in their local communities, rather than having to drive all the way to Hampton.”
In Kossuth County, all 500 residents of Whittemore got water in their basements, yards and/or streets, said Dave Penton, that county’s Algona-based emergency management coordinator.
“In Whittemore, there’s no Kmart or Walmart, and people were ecstatic that we brought these well-organized buckets of cleanup supplies close to them,” Penton said. “They were glad not to have to travel 45 minutes to a bigger city with a ‘big-box’ store.”
Each of the 36 CWS Emergency Cleanup Buckets sent to Whittemore was shared by two households, he noted, adding that “we get flash flooding regularly in that town.”
The total of 551 CWS Emergency Cleanup Buckets sent to northwest Iowa were valued at $29,736, with processing and shipping costs estimated at $4,500