Electricity has been restored to businesses along a section of the riverfront in Sioux City and Chris Payer, the city’s public works director, says his crews have removed river sand, debris and a 15-foot berm in the area. “We’ve also re-graded, disked up the land, in preparation for some seeding that we’re going to do,” Payer says. Sioux City crews have started chopping trees in the area.
“Many of the trees on the riverfront will be removed. Sitting in water that long, they’re going to have to come out,” Payer says. “…You can see some of the ones that still need to come out are already marked, so what we’re getting to those. We have a Tree City U.S.A. grant every year that we didn’t have a lot of opportunity to plant trees this summer with the (flooding) event and where we would plant them, we didn’t get a lot of trees in, so what we’re taking out we’ll be able to replace.”
A restaurant on the Sioux City riverfront called Bev’s on the River reopened Thursday after being closed for nearly three months because of the flooding Missouri River. The restaurant’s 150 employees were out of work for that stretch, and restaurant managers estimate the business lost about a million dollars because of the flood.
By Josie Cooper, KSCJ, Sioux City