News : NCCC marks 5th year in Vinton with same way it began: Flood aid

AmeriCorps members help with the second layer of Hesco flood barriers Friday morning.

The NCCC members will mark their fifth year in Vinton on the anniversary of the 2008 flood.

5 years of AmeriCorps in Vinton: the first project involved the Flood of 2008.

Team leader Melissa Ridder was among NCCC members helping with the sand barriers Friday.

Benches along the Cedar River are now partially under the rising water.

EMA Director Scott Hansen looks at photos of the 1993 flood while in the BC Transportation office.

Coach W and VSHS football players help with sandbags.

AmeriCorps members have been serving Vinton, and serving the nation from Vinton, since 2008.

The first group of AmeriCorps NCCC team leaders arrived in June 2008 -- the same day as the infamous historical flood.In addition to helping with sandbagging and other duties, a group of those first NCCC team leaders in their now-well-known dark green shirts with the "A" on the sleeve and chest helped run a shelter for those who had been displaced from their homes.

Five years and hundreds of members and team leaders later, NCCC teams approach the 5th anniversary of the NCCC arrival in Vinton the same way the first participants did: By helping Vinton deal with flooding.

Several personnel from the NCCC Hickory Unit were among those helping to fill the large Hesco barriers with sand. The barriers surround the fire station and VMEU electrical utility buildings, in some places two layers high.

City Coordinator Andy Lent said he believed that one layer is enough to protect the facilities, at the predicted flood level of 20.7 feet

Many volunteers, including the VS football team, have spent Friday morning helping to fill sandbags. The players and coach Jim Womochil had begun the day in the VS weight room before doing some heavy lifting of a different kind.

Changes along Cedar River since 2008

The purchase of the Hesco barriers -- which are also, coincidentally, the same dark green in color as the AmeriCorps team leader shirts -- is among the changes that have helped make Vinton more flood proof than it was five years ago.

Several of the houses that were flooded have been demolished; the owners relocated through the FEMA flood buyout program. Other property owners in the affected area have built concrete flood walls or have placed their homes on significantly higher foundations.