CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa – First FCU President Tim Byers climbed into a borrowed boat last week to navigate the rising waters of the Cedar River, then had to break a window to enter his credit union’s flooded branch in order to extricate data processing and other equipment threatened by the approaching deluge.
"I must admit this caught me a little off guard since our downtown branch was determined to be out of reach of original flood projections," said the chief of the $90 million credit union, one of dozens to be expelled from branches and other facilities by the onrushing river.
An estimated 20,000 people were forced to flee their homes here last week as the Cedar River crested to 32 feet, high above level it reached in 1993 during one of the worst floods in state history.
Dozens of credit union offices were being shut last week, either because of flooding, oncoming flooding or power outages. The worst hit were in Cedar Falls, Cedar Rapids, Des Moines, and Waterloo.
"This is our version of Katrina," Johnson County Emergency Management spokesman Mike Sullivan said. "This is the worst flooding we've ever seen -- much worse than 1993," when much of the Midwest was hit by record flooding.
Credit unions throughout the area were enacting disaster recovery plans and evacuating facilities in harm’s way, barely ahead of the onrush. The credit union movement’s cooperative spirit took hold quickly, with several credit unions offering their facilities and personal assistance to their besieged cohorts.
Des Moines Metro CU closed its riverside office and was operating from nearby First Class CU and United Service CU branches.
"When we left Wednesday the water was rising at our credit union and we grabbed the rest of what we needed," said Brad Mertens, president of Metco CU, which evacuated its own branches for the nearby Quaker Oats CU facility, where it was allowed set up three teller stations.
The speed of the flooding, said Rick Benhart, president of Collins Community CU, still had him and his coworkers "dazed" on Friday, after a tough week bailing out two locations. "My staff is in shock," Benhart told The Credit Union Journal. "There’s tens of thousands of people who have lost tremendous amounts."
Other credit unions that shut one or more offices were: Alliant CU, Cedar Falls Community CU, Community 1st CU, Des Moines Metro CU, Iowa Community CU, Midwest Utilities CU, Nishna Valley CU, University of Iowa Community CU, Quaker Oats CU and Veridan CU.
Credit union offices in other states, Missouri, Illinois, Nebraska, Wisconsin and Minnesota, were also being flooded.
