For Facilities Management, an invaluable army of volunteers

As the Iowa River swelled during the first week of June, Facilities Management staff worked around the clock to stay ahead of the flood waters.

But they were exhausted and overwhelmed by the task of protecting a growing number of University of Iowa buildings. On Friday, June 6, a call for volunteers went out by the Office of Student Life and UI Student Government. Within 30 minutes, hundreds of students showed up to help.

“The volunteers overwhelmed and invigorated us,” says Dave Jackson, assistant to the associate vice president for facilities management. “We absolutely couldn’t have done this without the volunteers.”

Throughout the next week, thousands of students, faculty, staff, and strangers filled and tied sandbags, formed sandbag lines, and built walls around buildings.

Guided by the University’s Flood Emergency Response Plan—finalized in April 2007 for a 100-year flood, not a 500-year flood as this was—Jackson helped coordinate the efforts, showing volunteers how high to build the walls and organizing groups in locations where the need was greatest. As new estimates showed the waters would rise higher than previously expected, volunteers returned to build the walls higher.

The atmosphere was festive at times. Old friends reunited; new friendships were formed. Jackson jotted down many of the names on a battered clipboard he carried with him. There was the principal from a local school and his family. There was the student government president and the faculty senate president. There were the Amish men and fraternity members. And there was the Iowa City contractor—whose own home had been destroyed by a tornado not long ago—who donated equipment and vehicles to help in the efforts.

When he wasn’t coordinating volunteer efforts or making sandbags, Jackson, an amateur photographer, took pictures of the work that he posted at www.hinkletown.com/iowaflood081.

At the sandbag camps, which were set up along Madison Street and in the Clapp Recital Hall parking lot, natural leaders emerged, Jackson says. People of all ages observed the process, got the hang of it, and showed others what to do. Departments like athletics and student life were particularly valuable in leading the volunteer efforts, Jackson says, because building teamwork is part of their everyday roles.

“Everyone was really coming together to save The University of Iowa,” Jackson says. “It bordered on passion and obsession. They were protecting sacred ground.”