Opening a New Chapter

Opening a New Chapter

About the time the rising Cedar River crested in downtown Cedar Rapids, Iowa, on June 13, 2008, a torrential downpour from an incoming thunderstorm joined forces with it to create the perfect flood. In the previous flood of record in the city, the river had reached 20...
Rebuilding and Sustaining a Legacy

Rebuilding and Sustaining a Legacy

Let’s try to imagine: You are the chief executive officer for a 1,300-acre public park in New Orleans, the largest in the city, although it does not belong to the city. It is incorporated under the state of Louisiana. You spend the weekend of Friday, August 26, 2005,...

Lasting Lessons in Resilience

In the latter half of June 2008, it was hard to imagine Cedar Rapids as the city it had been just one month earlier. A massive flood along the Cedar River clobbered the city with a classic double whammy: About the time existing flood crests that had already swamped...

Decade of Recovery and Resilience in Colorado

Ten years ago this month, Colorado faced a crisis. Following previous years of drought and wildfires, Rocky Mountain monsoon rains dumped a year’s worth of precipitation on the Front Range in a single day. Water poured down mountainsides that were sometimes so parched...