Cedar Rapids Flood Recovery: An Interview with Christine Butterfield

Christine Butterfield is the director of community development
for the city of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, which was hit by a
record-breaking flood in June 2008. She speaks here about the
extensive planning effort to rebuild a city in which more than
10,000 people were evacuated from areas along the Cedar River,
historic neighborhoods were inundated, and thousands of residents
lost their homes or saw them badly damaged.


At the APA National Planning Conference in Boston in April 2011,
she and her staff saw the city’s heroic efforts recognized with
an APA National Planning Excellence Award for Best Practices in
Hazard Mitigation and Disaster Planning, shared with Sasaki
Associates, Inc., for the city’s new River Corridor Development
Plan.