‘I’ve Never Seen So Much Water in My Life’

Iowa Mill Manager Tells of Teamwork That Led to Rapid Recovery After 500-Year Flood

Dave Lefever
Editor

EAST EARL, Pa. — “We had a really significant mess,” was one of the understatements John Bloomhall told about the flooding in Iowa this past June.

Bloomhall, president and CEO of Diamond V Mills, Inc. in Cedar Rapids Iowa, spoke to about 575 people at the Lancaster Chamber Ag Industry Banquet here at Shady Maple’s banquet hall last week.

Using photos and a few video clips, Bloomhall described in blow by blow detail the devastation from the history-making flood in which the Cedar River surged 31 feet above flood level, and of which Diamond V Mills was right in the middle.

But the highlight of Bloomhall’s talk was the story of people coming together in overwhelming conditions to orchestrate an amazingly rapid recovery.

Loyalty, teamwork and strong planning were traits that emerged as Diamond V struggled to get back in operation making its trademark yeast culture feed additive products.

“I’ve never seen so much water in my life,” Bloomhall said, recounting how the water reached the ceiling tiles on the first floor of company headquarters and was belly deep in the manufacturing facility.

“Words can’t even express how bad it was.”

In the worst previous flood on record in Cedar Rapids, the river peaked at 20 feet above flood level. This one topped the record by 11 feet, putting it into the category of a 500-year-flood, meaning there’s a 1-in-500 chance that such a flood will occur in any given year.

In Cedar Rapids, 24,000 people were evacuated and more than 800 businesses experienced water damage. Some of those businesses are still not back in operation, and some may never be again.

Diamond V isn’t one of them.

Bloomhall said when he first saw the high waters during a flyover of the facilities, “I thought we would be down for a month.”

But the company started making feed additives again on June 27, just eight and a half days after cleanup started on June 19. By July 3, manufacturing was back to 100 percent, although some of the packaging operations were still not running.

Fairness returned ‘a million times over’
According to Bloomhall, it was sticking to the company’s core values that pulled them through and made them a model of resilience. Those values include honesty, integrity, respect, stewardship and good corporate citizenship.

Having a policy of treating suppliers and service providers with decency went a long way toward pulling his company out of the disaster, according to Bloomhall.

“We don’t nickel and dime and try to get rock bottom prices,” he said.

That good will was overwhelmingly returned during and after the flood. In fact, “It saved us,” Bloomhall said.

Fast action and clear thinking were also a foundation of the recovery.

While the 65-year old family-owned business is usually operated by consensus, “in this case we went military,” Bloomhall said. Executives were assigned to carry out various parts of the recovery.

The company paid close attention to details that could naturally get overlooked in the face of a disaster, such as communications through e-mail and phone. It managed to keep its communications lines open during the flood and even kept in touch with its customers.

Diamond V employees are considered “family,” Bloomhall said, and the fairness with which they are treated was returned “a million times over” during the flood, as workers logged long hours doing many of the dirty and potentially discouraging cleanup jobs.

“There wasn’t a frown among them,” Bloomhall said.

Fortunately, the company had flood insurance, something that some of the other businesses in the area did not. While the insurance went a long way toward helping the company keep a positive balance sheet, Bloomhall estimated costs from the flood damage are roughly three times as much as the insurance will cover.

In addition to the roles of the company’s core values and having flood insurance, Bloomhall also admitted that “a lot of luck” was involved in the recovery.

Diamond V — which does business around the globe but manufactures all of its products in Cedar Rapids — has grown every single year since it started 65 years ago. Amazingly, it’s on track to keep that string intact this year, although the streak “was at risk there for a while,” Bloomhall said.

The company is even forging ahead with its plans to break ground for a second manufacturing plant next year.

This one will be out of the flood plain.