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Larry Peyton, seen Monday, Dec. 10, 2012, lives next door to a vacant house in the northwest Cedar Rapids flood zone, where neighbors and business owners are keeping an eye on vacant properties. Forty flood-damaged structures in Cedar Rapids have caught fire since the Floods of 2008, and Peyton is worried for his home if the neighboring house would catch fire. (Liz Martin/The Gazette)
Forty flood-damaged structures have caught fire in Cedar Rapids since the flood of 2008 — the most recent Dec. 3 — and neighbors of flood-damaged properties are keeping a wary eye.
“I can’t go through a fire after the flood, that’s for sure,” said Mike Papich, owner of Papich-Kuba Funeral Home, 1228 Second St. SE. “If something went up in flames closer than that grocery I’d be a little concerned, but I don’t know what a person could do.”
Papich was referring to the Nov. 30 fire that leveled the old Globe Grocery at 131 14th Ave. SW, just days after historic preservation advocates convinced the city to save it. The grocery store stood about two blocks from the funeral home.
Suspects were charged in two of the fires involving flood-damaged buildings. Investigators said the Globe fire was the result of some “human element,” but the building’s destruction left no clues whether accidental — vagrants trying to keep warm, or discarded cigarette butts — or intentional.
“There are a multitude of possible causes, so in the absence of electrical and gas utilities, as well as severe weather (like a lightning strike), it appears that there is a human element involved,” Fire Department spokesman Greg Buelow wrote in an email. Buelow said a fire can’t declared an arson unless its cause is determined.
Many of the buildings still standing, in New Bo and other flooded neighborhoods, became city property through buyouts in the recovery process. Monica Vernon, chair of city council’s development committee, said many of the remaining vacant buildings have legally clouded titles and other issues delaying demolition.
Is there more Cedar Rapids officials could, or should, be doing to prevent fires in flood zone buildings?
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If nothing elase its probably helping rid the area of Eye Sores! Something the red tapes dragging out!
Let’s see…..Is there something else the city can do to prevent fires? Sure. It’s called TEARING DOWN the eyesores, clearing the land, thus removing the “fuel” that causes the fires (i.o.w. the decaying lumber). If there is nothing there but an empty lot – then there isn’t much to burn.
It has been almost FIVE YEARS since the flood, and from what i’ve been told, driving around some areas you could have sworn this all happened just a few months ago.
There is no excuse. The forward thinkers of Cedar Rapids really scare me.
Instead of spending so much for consultants who propose ways to better isolate and drive people out of the downtown area, why not spend some of that money on generating plans that would protect the west side of the river so that people COULD build in those 100 year flood planes? To H with the Army Corps of Engineers, its time for real solutions for real people.
Once a realistic plan is envisioned and on paper (or computer screen) perhaps the funding to build it will follow.
As these homes and buildings stand right now, if they aren’t already owned by the city, then they’re costing the landowners money. If they are owned by the city, then any developmental authority will tell you that it is easier to ‘sell’ a flat and level piece of property rather than to find a use and a buyer for one that already has an old building in desperate need of renovation.
We all know that the city needs more revenue.