US Congressman for Iowa’s 3rd District Zach Nunn introduced a bi-partisan bill to help individuals in areas affected by storms and flooding.

Nunn says that the Flooding Prevention, Assessment and Restoration Act is a bill he believes will not only help those in areas that see regular flooding, but also help individuals in areas that received storm damage, like from the tornadoes that struck Minden and Greenfield. He tells Raccoon Valley Radio that there is an expectation that government will do the right thing to help communities affected by these disasters to get back up on their feet.

“I believe that if our bill here becomes law, it would help farmers return their farmland to pre-tornado conditions and protect them against future disasters. Really copper-bottoming the belief here that our rural communities are tethered not only to our farmers but to the land itself and helping to be able to reconstitute not just what happens to homes in the community, but to the entire region that’s impacted by this.”

Nunn mentions that not only are usually the first impacted when disaster strikes, but that it ripples out across the entire community. He adds that the bill is important, because over the last 20 years in Iowa, flooding and storms has contributed to one third of the loss of crops over that same time period across the country, with farmers in the heartland losing six billion dollars in crops to rain and flooding.

Nunn explains that under current law, federal assistance through several programs like the Emergency Watershed Protection Program only allow for land restoration to pre-disaster conditions, while the Flooding Prevention, Assessment and Restoration Act would ensure that rural communities could restore land to above pre-disaster conditions.