As the streets of Cedar Rapids start to get cleaned up, one can only ask themselves, how long is this going to take?  Well I think that is a question that is weighing on everyone’s mind, but nobody has an answer for it.

The now displaced and disfunctional downtown area of Cedar Rapids, IA is going to take months, heck, probably years to clean up and rebuild.  The clean up process in the downtown area is going a lot better and moving faster then what I thought it would.  Owners of small businesses are cleaning out their once flourishing businesses while larger companies are having some of their employees to come in and help with the clean up effort.

Companies are already talking about the rebuilding process and are hopeful to get their businesses up and running as soon as they possibly can.  As far as some of the people who worked downtown, or in other flooded areas of Cedar Rapids, they are jobless.  GazetteOnline.com wrote an article saying that there are approximately 6,000-7,000 people in Cedar Rapids now jobless because of this flood.  The big question is, what and where will they find a job???

Today President Bush is going to be touring the Cedar Rapids and Iowa City areas.  Bush is going to be talking with both cities officials about the multi-billion dollar clean up that is in store for these two cities.

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Filed under: Flooding/Storms, Iowa, Weather