(Radio Iowa) – Dozens of residents remain displaced and several businesses are closed in Muscatine after the eastern Iowa city evacuated an entire block downtown last Friday. The order to clear out 20 buildings came after city engineers found structural issues following a partial roof collapse earlier this month. Ann Meeker owns property on the block and says the evacuation was mismanaged from the beginning.
“There was no help. We’re standing down there in the rain, helping people load their belongings with nowhere to go,” Meeker says. “We felt totally worthless and helpless, and that’s not the way we operate.” The city says tenants can return when engineers determine a building is safe, but there’s no timeline in place. Jeff Osborne, who represents the area on the Muscatine City Council, says first they need to determine what’s causing the instability.
“Some of those issues can be mitigated very quickly, obviously, and some of them are going to take some time for corrections to happen,” Osborne says. “It could be quite a while.” In the meantime, residents can sign up for appointments to access their homes and possessions. Some residents told city council members the notification process was riddled with errors, with buildings being tagged with wrong information and leaving some people with nowhere to go. Police Chief Anthony Kies told the city council safety was his primary concern.
“It was never our intent to upset anybody with our communication,” Kies says, “but we were up against a rock and a hard spot, and we’re trying to navigate it the best that we can.” Police officers are stationed on the street, which is closed to traffic, to prevent anyone from entering the affected buildings. Only three buildings have been cleared, but 36 apartment units and 18 businesses remain impacted.
