Iowans will help decide the country's future, but this town is unsure of its own
Hamburg, in the southwest corner of Iowa, is situated between the Missouri and Nishnabotna Rivers.In March 2019, the combination of an extreme weather event, elevated snowpack and a torrent of water released from a dam hundreds of miles upriver left most of Hamburg underwater.
The water broke through the levees in 50 places, by the Corps’ count, surging over the levees’ tops and then washing them out from underneath. As the water traveled toward Hamburg, it “took on tremendous velocity,” says Crain. “Think of a rollercoaster.” A local farmer, surveying the immediate devastation by helicopter, spotted a small berm of land jutting up from the middle of what now could be mistaken for tidelands, the helicopter’s blades churning the deep water into whitecaps. On the tiny island stood both deer and coyote. And everyone made their way to the school — the only public building on dry land., Hamburg’s superintendent, Mike Wells, had been trying to radically re-imagine the town’s combined K-8 school.
It made sense then, in the spirit of nurturing a school full of doers, that Wells would throw open the school’s doors during the flood, and that he would also make the students a key part of the town’s recovery. Superintendent Mike Wells challenges his students to learn by implementing real-world educational opportunities.Wells’ construction project is still just a dream. So is his plan to bring a high school back to Hamburg, with a curriculum that would offer trade certification.
Crain tends to downplay that part of her history whenever someone brings it up. “I sure don’t miss wearing panty hose,” she’ll say, and laugh, but if you catch her in a more reflective moment, she puts it this way: “What those years taught me was that it was useless to worry about doing things simply to earn people’s praise, as if one big accomplishment was enough.
Back in 2011, when the town had been threatened once before by potential flooding from the Missouri, Hamburg sought emergency permission from the Corps to quickly add eight feet to the existing levee that protected their town. Working for eight straight days, and assisted by local farmers under their hire, the Corps managed to throw up an effective barrier just in time. In the end, it held back the waters of the Missouri for 120 days and kept the town dry.
“I make a distinction between a flood and a disaster. This was a disaster. People here know how to rebuild after floods. But another disaster like this last one would truly mean end of us,” Crain told me. “People could not go through this again.”that the snowpack in Montana and the Dakotas was already greater than it had been a year earlier — and for the towns along the Missouri, which would absorb the potential runoff, this mattered more than the local weather patterns.
It was one of the most profound takeaways that many of the flood’s survivors spoke of, weeks later. As terrifying and overwhelming as the initial days had been, there was also a sense of elation and wonder at how everyone simply did what was needed, helped each other without question and took all obstacles out of each other's way.
Pastor Luke Fillmore continues trying to provide support for community members in Hamburg and the surrounding areas.In many ways, Fillmore said, he believes that the flood allowed the community to see how it might remake itself to be there for every one of its members.
But how long could it last? According to the handout on the table in the church: After community cohesion comes disillusionment., the water finally retreated enough to reveal the fields that had been hidden underneath, leaving thick deposits of sand that called to mind desolate moonscapes. Much of that land, held in families for generations, would likely be unfarmable now, the cost of trying to remove all that sand too prohibitive.
There were other things that rankled, emerging frustrations as it felt more and more like the experiment in communal democracy forged in the days of flood was bogged down by the old, familiar institutional structures that they had temporarily delighted in suspending. It said something about how much the town was desperate to see something finally added rather than taken away, neighbors lined dozens deep along the block surrounding the lot to watch the crane release the two-bedroom, two-bathroom home onto its foundation — not before accidentally grazing it against one of the trees on the property.
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