University of Iowa President Sally Mason Sends Out Letter Outlining Flood Preparations

Via the University of Iowa

Dear Members of the University Community:

As we approach the five-year anniversary of the historic 2008 flood on our campus, it is incredible that we are preparing once again for flooding at the University of Iowa. I know that many of you are concerned about the Iowa River's rising water and what it means for our campus. While much, of course, depends on the weather (how much rain we get, when we get it, and where we get it), please be assured that we are making significant preparations for campus flooding and are working tirelessly to protect our facilities and programs.

We are remaining careful rather than sorry. We have evacuated summer residents from Mayflower Residence Hall on Dubuque Street and have erected flood barriers there; the output at the Coralville Lake dam has been increased, so Dubuque Street near Mayflower and City Park is expected to flood. We are also erecting flood barriers around the arts campus buildings and will close those facilities as of the end of the day Friday. Other measures are being taken elsewhere on campus, including sandbagging of the water plant intake near the UI Main Library as well as relocating equipment and other vulnerable materials in some buildings.

We will be carefully and constantly monitoring the situation and will take any further measures, including precautionary measures, as necessary. Currently, university functions are continuing as scheduled. We will continue to evaluate our situation as we get daily briefings on the flood. We have extremely knowledgeable people at work on the current flood preparation, and we of course learned many valuable lessons from the flood of 2008. We are putting the talent and knowledge we have to their best use, and I have every confidence that we will handle--and are handling--the current flood situation as best as we possibly can. We have never been better prepared for campus flooding than we are now.

We are regularly updating flood preparation information at the "Iowa Now" website at http://now.uiowa.edu/keywords/flood-updates-2013 . You can also find updates on Twitter (@uiowa, #uifloodupdates). For information about road, sidewalk, parking lot, elevator, and business entrance closures, UI Facilities Management offers subscriptions to its Access & Construction listserve alerts; to sign up, visit www.facilities.uiowa.edu/closures. For building access information, visit http://www.facilities.uiowa.edu/facilitiesclosings.htm. To view online, interactive flood modeling maps for Iowa City and other communities throughout Iowa, visit iowafloodcenter.org.

I thank all of those in the university and local communities who are working to prepare and protect our campus. And I thank all of you for your patience and understanding as we once again face an Iowa River flood.

Sally Mason
President