Stu Spaulding spent six weeks working for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in Des Moines, Iowa, engineering long term needs related to Hurricane Katrina.
Spaulding explained that there are two levels of needs in an emergency, the immediate and then long term, noting, “In an emergency we’re required to do temporary fixes for the sewer plant or water system to go into production…It may take a year for engineers and others to design long term repairs of the plant.
“On my part in Katrina, I was involved in the first phase of making immediate repairs on the Mississippi gulf coast,” said Spaulding. “It looked like an atom bomb hit.
“I was fortunate to be one of five who lived in a camper, but no water or electricity,” said Spaulding, noting that some of the people lived in tents.
“Our job was working 15 to 16 hours a day to make sure wastewater plants were in service. One plant had mules turning it so it could be in service.”
Spaulding said he had no complaints, that America’s technology team is better than anybody can believe. “Unless one is involved, no one can appreciate the technical ability to handle infrastructure in emergencies,” he commented.
“In Iowa, I was tasked to work on the second phase, where a flood had occurred in 2008 and other floods happened since then,” said Spaulding. “The infrastructure in Cedar Rapids and several other cities was completely destroyed.”
He said that this wastewater treatment plant was more than twice the size of Taylor’s new plant and it went into service on a temporary basis, taking two years to design and bring it into service.
Spaulding was brought in by FEMA because he was familiar with this wastewater treatment plant. His assignment was to work with another engineer to see if they agreed with the pre-estimate and flood damage, and to get the final funds obligated to complete the work, noting, “this happened through six to seven communities with millions of dollars involved.” FEMA staff members were also involved. He described them as experts in paperwork and noted that they worked with the State of Iowa in handling matters such as mitigation to try to do things to stop floods from happening in the future. There were environmentalists who want to make sure environmental things are met, and archeological matters had to be protected.
“On one hand, it’s a very complicated operation to handle these type of fundings, there were hundreds of millions of dollars involved, but on the other hand, it’s become very streamlined like a military operation and everybody knows what their tasks are,” said Spaulding.
Spaulding has been involved in eight or nine such projects since the early 1990s where he gave his expertise.
“It rained or snowed every day I was there,” said Spaulding. “I thought, can this be normal, and then when I got back home I saw the great flooding on the Mississippi River.”
Spaulding received a letter from FEMA commending his particularly fine effort as a project officer and task force leader during recovery efforts along the gulf coast of Mississippi in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. It states in part, “Your field performance assisting applicant community and district water and wastewater systems recover from water and sewer damage has been outstanding.” He was commended for being focused, technically knowledgeable, and for displaying great ability in working with FEMA and others involved in the project, including the applicants.
Stu Spaulding
