Midwest bankers help lead communities in flood recovery

Local banks served as an important information and community assistance point after unprecedented flooding hit the Upper Midwest in late June and early July..Over the course of a few weeks, several disasters were declared by state officials and one person died after rivers in South Dakota, Iowa, and Minnesota crested at high levels..Greg Westra, CFO and executive vice president of Premier Bank in Rock Valley, Iowa, said flooding from a deluge of rain during the weekend of June 22-23 hit his community quickly with record-breaking water levels that were 5 to 7 feet above the town's 2014 flooding. ."In the past flood, we probably had 120 homes affected and this time we had 500," he said. "It really caught everybody off guard. It was just a perfect storm of too much water, with our town seeing 16 inches of rain in a 24-hour period, and people had nowhere to go.".Premier Bank remained dry, but many of its employees' homes were flooded. Because the flooding hit on a Friday night, Westra and his team had a few days to organize their emergency preparedness plan and keep service accessible for customers. The bank's Rock Valley location had electricity back by Monday morning, and its team was cleaning up the aftermath while its four other locations were fully open and operating. ."We had a skeleton crew here at the bank in Rock Valley, and those were people who may not have been out helping people, but they're still heroes," he said. "They were answering the phones and talking to people who had significant losses and were trying to figure out how to make house payments on houses that were gone.".Westra said there are still some families living in a local church as the area continues to clean up and move past the disaster. His bank is still working with individual customers to modify their loans to try and give people some breathing room for their immediate needs..Ninety minutes to the east, Northwest Bank President Joe Conover was dealing with similar issues. While most of its locations were open for regular service on Monday, June 24, the bank's South Grand driveup location in Spencer, Iowa, was inoperable and its technology destroyed. Its other Grand Avenue location a few blocks north had been mostly spared, but did not have electricity until the Tuesday following the flood..Finding the right support .Bankers across the affected region have since been answering calls and directing customers to the assistance they need to best handle the natural disaster. Senior Vice President Mark Warmka at Peoples State Bank in Wells, Minn., has been working with farmers in the area who are dealing with drowned fields.."We have a number of acres that were drowned out and replanted and drowned out again in a lot of cases," he said. "The impact on growing conditions for corn and soybeans will be impacted as will yields and total production. Take that with decreased commodity prices from previous years, and it will definitely be a lower revenue year for our farm customers.".Further west in South Dakota, downpour rain affected many people and flooded dozens of businesses and homes in June and July. South Dakota Bankers Association President Karl Adam and his staff reached out to all its member banks to see what they needed following the weather event. .Adam said the Federal Emergency Management Agency had officials on the ground quickly after flooding began and they have been in the state often.."The process, unfortunately, doesn't happen quickly, but the bank is the place where many people get the information they need and can direct people to the individual FEMA coordinators who are located in the region," he said. "Putting them in contact with coordinators and helping them with donations and the application process is lengthy. People's lives have been turned upside down and there's a lot of pain out there and our bankers are helping in pulling people together to put their lives back together.".Seth McCaulley, president of Spencer, Iowa-based Community State Bank, said he has been in contact with FEMA since day one. His bankers discuss the best options from federal agencies and the Small Business Administration with customers as they continue to have questions about the best next steps.."We want to utilize the federal programs [available] for those who have been through this disaster as much as possible," he said. "At the same time, we are open to figuring things out with our customers and each one of those is a different conversation.".McCaulley said 75 percent of Spencer's buildings were affected, so people will need more time to find the best solution following the disaster..As cleanup in many communities continues, the long-term effects are beginning to be seen. Many surrounding areas that were not as affected by the downpours and flooding have organized and made the trek to help neighboring towns, Conover said.."It's going to be a long road to recovery and a lot of thought to make sure we're putting the town back the best way we can," he said. "We're in that phase now where the adrenaline wears off after a week or two of cleanup."