In a Small Iowa Town, a Solution to a National Crisis

Summary

The Opinions – New York Times Opinion

Episode: In a Small Iowa Town, a Solution to a National Crisis
Release Date: May 1, 2026
Host: David Leonhardt

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Overview

This episode explores how the small town of Riverdale, Iowa—a community of just 550—has become a model for flood preparedness and adaptation in the face of increasing flash floods worsened by climate change. Through conversations with Mayor Anthony Huddleston and experts at the Iowa Flood Center, host David Leonhardt reveals how innovative local solutions are filling gaps left by federal funding cuts and shifting national priorities.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Problem: Increasing Flood Risks and Federal Pullback

• Climate pressures: Flash floods are increasing across the U.S. due to climate change, with recent deadly examples in Texas.
• Federal cuts: President Trump’s administration has been cutting funding and programs that assist communities with flood preparation and response.
• Impact on small towns: Towns like Riverdale, which heavily relied on federal sensors and support, find themselves vulnerable.

Riverdale’s Story: Facing the Flood

• Mayor Huddleston: A part-time mayor and civil engineer, he’s described as a "weather nerd" with a home weather station.
  • “All the queues are telling me something's gonna go south here in my evening, right.” – [03:41], Mayor Huddleston
• Loss of federal gauge: In May, the town discovers its crucial water sensor (gauge) has been ripped out, with no help forthcoming due to mass federal resignations and funding cuts.
  • “This gauge has been discontinued. Please email Gary Johnson if you'd like to ask any questions.” – [04:39], Mayor Huddleston

Innovation: Iowa Flood Center’s Local Solution

• Iowa Flood Center creation: The state-funded center developed small, affordable water gauges—costing a fraction of those previously provided by the federal government.
  • “I would say that this is at the size of a big shoebox...and a little cylinder the size of a Red Bull can sticking out the bottom...” – [06:26], Larry Weber, Flood Center Director
  • Cost comparison: Federal gauge—$100,000+; Iowa gauge—$7,500.
  • “That's a pretty great. Pretty great deal.” – [07:31], Mayor Huddleston
• Data and prediction: Gauges provide live data and predictive modeling, visible online. But it’s a local system—not used by the national weather forecasting network.

A Harrowing Night: July Flood Threat

• Decision-making under pressure:
  • The new gauge predicts Duck Creek could rise eight feet, possibly overtopping the flood wall.
  • The mayor personally checks the flood wall and scrambles to confirm the prediction’s accuracy, fearing for his residents—especially vulnerable neighbors.
    • “I said, oh, that's a big question I need to ask myself there...potentially, we need to evacuate people.” – [08:25], Mayor Huddleston
  • Unable to reach the flood center on a Friday night, he describes feeling furious and heavily burdened:
    • “I've never. I was. There were a couple of times where I was furious that evening that I couldn't get ahold of people, that they were gone. That is a heavy. A heavy, heavy weight to put on somebody to have to make that decision.” – [09:53], Mayor Huddleston
• Resolution: After hours of tension, mayor receives word from a flood center engineer that the model overestimated; the creek will only rise four feet—below the flood wall.
  • “At around 11:30pm, Felipe calls me back and he says, hey, it's only going to be four feet. I did the math, the model's over predicting a little bit...” – [11:59], Mayor Huddleston
  • “I can breathe, I can sleep tonight. It's going to be okay.” – [12:16], Mayor Huddleston

Community Trust and Local Government

• Evacuation accuracy matters: False evacuations erode community trust; the stakes are high both in physical safety and civic relationships.
  • “Those officials want to get evacuations right to save lives, but also to preserve their relationship with their residents.” – [13:04], David Leonhardt

Systemic Impact: Iowa as a National Example

• Practical local uses: Iowa's mapping and gauge data empower officials to make evidence-based decisions:
  • “You realize this area has been underwater every time a frog farts...I am not about putting 30 families in harm's way.” – [14:07], Rick Wolfkol, Buchanan County Emergency Coordinator
• Disaster response: Officials consult the flood center for real-time navigation and rescue planning during major floods.
  • “We give water velocities in all the streets and say, you know, you're better to go down 3rd Avenue...” – [14:52], Larry Weber
• Scalability: The Iowa system could be implemented nationwide for a modest cost (~$2 million upfront, ~$500k annual maintenance, per state). Yet, most states have not followed suit.

Structural Problems in Federal Response

• Outdated and incomplete FEMA maps:
  • Many locations lack updated or sufficiently detailed flood predictions, especially for smaller tributaries like Duck Creek.
  • “The interface looks like it's from Internet 1.0. ... That part of the map hasn't been updated since 2010.” – [16:07], David Leonhardt
• Federal inaction as its own disaster: The Trump administration’s actions may finally compel states to take independent action on climate resilience.
  • “What President Trump is doing right now is kind of its own disaster. So it could be the motivator communities need to get moving on preparing for climate change.” – [16:54], unnamed expert

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On local knowledge and vulnerability:
  • “With these storms coming...I am hoping to have a nice, relaxing, calm evening...I had made myself a brandy Old Fashioned.” – [02:41], Mayor Huddleston
• On leadership in crisis:
  • “I felt like I earned my whole paycheck that night. Right. Like that. That was. That was a weighty decision.” – [09:53], Mayor Huddleston
• On the importance of the Iowa Flood Center:
  • “The mayor knows how lucky he is to have the Iowa Flood Center...the technology of the gauges and their modeling predictions and importantly, the human experts on call in a crisis.” – [12:49], David Leonhardt
• On local practicality, with humor:
  • “You realize this area has been underwater every time a frog farts.” – [14:07], Rick Wolfkol

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Important Timestamps

• 00:46: Show host David Leonhardt introduces the episode’s central question.
• 02:10: Meeting Mayor Anthony Huddleston; context setting in Riverdale.
• 04:39: The federal gauge's removal confirmed; the predicament of small towns.
• 06:26: Description of the Iowa-made replacement gauge; affordable local solution.
• 07:33: New gauge is installed and operational before flood crisis.
• 08:25 – 10:00: Mayor’s decision-making under stress as floodwaters rise.
• 11:59: Relief—flood center provides updated, reassuring forecast.
• 14:07: Local official Rick Wolfkol discusses how flood data shapes policy with memorable humor.
• 15:04: Flood center's national scalability and cost discussion.
• 16:54: Expert flags Trump administration’s inaction as potential catalyst for state-level change.

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Episode Tone & Style

The tone is empathetic, personal, and pragmatic, conveying both the technical details and the emotional stakes of local government leaders forced to improvise under pressure. There’s a thread of dry humor, especially from local officials, and a sense of urgency about climate adaptation and government responsibility.

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Takeaway

Iowa’s innovative, state-driven flood prediction system has protected lives and fostered trust, offering a practical model for communities nationwide—especially at a time of federal retreat. As flash flooding worsens, other states have a blueprint in front of them. Now, says David Leonhardt, they need the will to act.

Transcript

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[Show Host]

This is the Opinions, a show that brings you a mix of voices from New York Times Opinion. You've heard the news. Here's what to make of it.

[David Leonhardt]

I'm David Leonhart of New York Times Opinion. I work on our editorial board where we spend a lot of time talking about the country's biggest challenges. Last summer, one of my colleagues became a little obsessed with one problem in flash flooding. Climate change is increasing the number of floods, just as President Trump is cutting government programs that help communities deal with those floods. It doesn't have to be this way. Even if the President doesn't undo his cuts, and he should. My colleague Gillian Weinberger set out to find out whether other people can make a difference in the meantime. And she discovered that the answer is yes. She found a place that has taken steps to save money and more importantly, save lives. Gillian found a rare thing in America in 2026. An inspiring story about the government doing something right.

The story begins in Riverdale, Iowa. It's home to just 550 people and at least one deer. I am standing in front of the City Hall. Just in front of me is a deer. Hi. She watched me make my way into City Council chambers, where I met Riverdale's Mayor, Anthony Heddleston. Hi. Hello.

[Mayor Anthony Huddleston]

Welcome to Riverdale.

[David Leonhardt]

Thank you so much. Mayor Heddleston has long sideburns and a mustache that curls around the corners of his mouth. The day we met, he was wearing his patriotic glasses emblazoned with the American flag. Are your eyeglasses the red, white and blue? Are they. Oh, wow. They're magnetic.

[Mayor Anthony Huddleston]

So they're the. Yeah, yeah. The eyeglasses that you can swap out.

[David Leonhardt]

So I wanted to meet Mayor Huddleston to hear about a harrowing, stormy night last summer. The rain had started coming down that afternoon.

[Mayor Anthony Huddleston]

I am hoping to have a nice, relaxing, calm evening and, you know, take, take, take the edge off, watch some tv, whatever. I had made myself a brandy Old Fashioned.

[David Leonhardt]

Anthony soon realized that the rain was coming down pretty hard, flooding a high possibility.

[Mayor Anthony Huddleston]

With these storms Coming in this afternoon into the evening.

[David Leonhardt]

This was a week after the deadly flash floods in Central Texas, the ones that hit Camp Mystic. Riverdale is also at high risk for floods. It sits at the confluence of two bodies of water, the Mississippi river and Duck Creek.

[Mayor Anthony Huddleston]

We have more time to prepare on the Mississippi, usually days at least to, if not weeks, to prepare for whatever's coming. Duck Creek's a much flashier stream, so you've got more, like, hours to figure it out.

[David Leonhardt]

Because Riverdale is such a small town, Anthony serves as mayor only part time in his day job. He's a civil engineer for the Army Corps of Engineers, and he's kind of a weather nerd. He's got a whole weather station set up at his house.

[Mayor Anthony Huddleston]

It sets off an alarm if it gets too high of a rainfall rate. And so it's going off in the background. All the queues are telling me something's gonna go south here in my evening, right.

[Emergency Coordinator Rick Wolfkol]

Flash flood warning remains in effect until

[David Leonhardt]

9pm this evening for southern Scott and Rock island counties. Until recently, Mayor Huddleston had help in situations like these from the federal government. The feds ran a gauge on Duck Creek, a little brick house with a sensor inside. It measured the height of the creek and posted the information online. Local officials would use that information to make decisions about evacuations during storms. But the mayor no longer had that crucial service at his disposal, in part because of President Trump and Elon Musk. To understand how all of this unfolded, we have to rewind a few months from July back to May. That's when the mayor went to check the height of the creek online and

[Mayor Anthony Huddleston]

said, this gauge has been discontinued. Please email Gary Johnson if you'd like to ask any questions. And I was like, oh, wonderful. I know Gary Johnson from work.

[David Leonhardt]

Gary worked for the federal agency that runs the gauges. The mayor had met him through his day job.

[Mayor Anthony Huddleston]

I was like, I'll just call him up. And I typed an email. Hey, Gary, how you been? I haven't seen you in a while. Like, hope everything's great. What's going on with this gauge? And I immediately got a response back. And it said, hey, this is Gary Johnson. I've taken the deferred resignation program, and I'm not available to help you. And I was like, oh, my goodness.

[David Leonhardt]

Deferred resignation is what the Trump administration offered tens of thousands of federal employees last year. It allowed them to stop working but continue getting paid for a few months while they looked for a new job. Gary Johnson had taken the feds up on the offer. So the mayor asked around to see what was going on with the gauge. He discovered that the feds had ripped the whole thing out, and it would have eventually cost the town more than $100,000 to replace it. Riverdale, population 550, does not have that kind of money lying around.

[Mayor Anthony Huddleston]

That is a big ask of residents of our community.

[David Leonhardt]

But mayor Huddleston was in the middle of flood season. He worried he couldn't protect his city without the information the gage provided. Now, in most states, the mayor would have been, if you'll excuse me, up Duck Creek without a paddle. But the mayor was very lucky because Iowa is different. Engineers at the Iowa Flood center have developed an incredible tool. Larry Weber is the director there. He showed me the gauge in his lab. If you had to describe this to someone who couldn't see it, how would you describe it?

[Larry Weber]

I would say that this is at the size of a big shoebox. You know, I just bought myself a new pair of cowboy boots, you know, and I'm going to have a little cylinder the size of a Red Bull can sticking out the bottom and a couple little probes out the top that are antennas. So pretty straightforward, really.

[David Leonhardt]

This is a gauge. It's a fraction of the size of the one the federal government built on the shores of Duck Creek. Cities and towns can buy the gauge from the flood center. Local officials like Anthony can attach it to the side of a bridge over a body of water, and the sensor inside measures the height of that water. It then posts that information online with a predictive model so local officials can see how, say, a rainstorm is likely to affect their creek. The data from the federal gauge is part of a national weather forecasting system. The Iowa gage is not. But otherwise, it does pretty much what the federal one can do for way less money. The Iowa made gauge cost about $7,500.

[Mayor Anthony Huddleston]

That's a pretty great. Pretty great deal.

[David Leonhardt]

When Anthony realized his federal gauge was gone, he bought one of the smaller gauges from the Iowa flood center. He bolted it to a bridge over Duck Creek, and it was ready for him. On that rainy July night, as the ice melted in his old fashioned, the predictor model attached to the gauge said that given the rain, Duck Creek was likely to rise 8ft sometime in the middle of the night. So the mayor decided to go down to the creek and measure the flood wall. Could it contain 8 extra feet of water?

[Mayor Anthony Huddleston]

I had a tape measure with me. There's a set of steps that goes down into Duck Creek, and each one of those is about eight inches. And I said, okay, 1, 2, 3, 4. Right? And I did the math, and I said, whoa, that's. That's. That's right. About eight feet.

[David Leonhardt]

The steps were about eight feet in total. The same number of feet. The gage predicted the creek would rise in the rain. That might mean the creek could inundate the homes next door.

[Mayor Anthony Huddleston]

I said, oh, that's a big question I need to ask myself there. You know, we're talking about potentially, we need to evacuate people.

[David Leonhardt]

Mayor Huddleston thought of one resident in particular. An older man who lives right next to the creek, who uses an oxygen tank, someone who would need extra time and care to get out. And if the creek hit 8ft in the middle of the night, that is a tough time to evacuate.

[Mayor Anthony Huddleston]

I was wanting to ask the flood center that night, how accurate is this prediction? Like, do I need to tell everyone out right now because it's not accurate low? Or do I need to not worry about this because it's not accurate high? Or is it really accurate and it's going to be right at the top of the flood wall? And I better tell people like, well, you better be ready.

[David Leonhardt]

Remember, this is the first time Anthony is using the new gauge in the midst of a potentially disastrous flood. He wants to make sure that the prediction is accurate, so he's confident in his decision to evacuate or not.

[Mayor Anthony Huddleston]

So I call the flood center. It's Friday night. They're not a 247 operation. Right. And so there's nobody there to answer the phone.

[David Leonhardt]

Can you talk about just, like your headspace at the point where, you know, it's pouring rain, all these things are going off. You are responsible for this town of people and. And, you know, these federal officials had taken a deferred resignation. Who you had once depended on and, you know, what were you thinking at that point?

[Mayor Anthony Huddleston]

It's just. It's so heavy. I've never. I was. There were a couple of times where I was furious that evening that I couldn't get ahold of people, that they were gone. That is a heavy. A heavy, heavy weight to put on somebody to have to make that decision. I felt like I earned my whole paycheck that night. Right. Like that. That was. That was a weighty decision.

[David Leonhardt]

Now it's about 10:30pm Mayor Huddleston heads up to the emergency operations center the county set up. He contacts the Red Cross about arranging a shelter in case he needs to evacuate residents. He drafts a message to send through his emergency alert system.

[Mayor Anthony Huddleston]

So then we still had to, like, Kind of figure out like, well, what's, what's the risk here still, right? We don't know.

[David Leonhardt]

He had the information from the gauge. It predicted the water would rise to exactly where the flood wall ended. But he knew there was some margin of error there. What were the chances the gauge was underestimating and the whole neighborhood next to the creek would flood? Thanks to the magic of LinkedIn, Anthony tracked down an engineer at the flood center named Felipe. He agreed to run a different model to see if he could get a more precise answer on how high the creek might rise. Then all the mayor could do was wait and wait. He decided to head back down to the creek to monitor the situation.

[Mayor Anthony Huddleston]

So we get down there and as I'm standing there at the flood wall, it's still raining on us. Duck Creek is a raging inferno like it is. It is a scary high velocity flood. And if it were to go over that flood wall and hit those houses, we're not talking about, you know, a soaked first floor in a ruined basement. We're talking about knocking things off foundations and people's lives being ruined and people's lives being lost. Right. It's a, it's a scary situation. So it's, it's not a thing that you want to be wrong about. Right.

[David Leonhardt]

And then finally, as he was standing there panicking, watching the creek rise at

[Mayor Anthony Huddleston]

around 11:30pm Felipe calls me back and he says, hey, it's only going to be four feet. I did the math, the model's over predicting a little bit four feet far

[David Leonhardt]

below the level of the flood wall.

[Mayor Anthony Huddleston]

I can breathe, I can sleep tonight. It's going to be okay.

[David Leonhardt]

The mayor finally made it home around 1 in the morning.

[Mayor Anthony Huddleston]

Just kind of walked in the door, took off my rain jacket and just, yeah, right. Big sigh of relief. At that point I recalled to myself that I had made myself a brandy old fashioned that was sitting down stairs at my desk and I was like, I am doing it, like. So I went down and I drank my old Fashioned.

[David Leonhardt]

What a night. The mayor knows how lucky he is to have the Iowa Flood Center. It's the technology of the Gages and their modeling predictions and importantly, the human experts on call in a crisis. And after what the mayor went through that night, the flood center added its leaders cell phone numbers to the website. Iowans can reach them anytime. If Mayor Huddleston hadn't been able to reach the flood center last July, he might have had to evacuate the neighborhood in the middle of the night for no reason. That might not seem like A big deal on its face. But think about the stress, the panicked phone call, waking up your kids, the decisions of what to take with you, what to save, and then to later realize you evacuated for no reason. That risks a real loss of trust in local government. Those officials want to get evacuations right to save lives, but also to preserve their relationship with their residents. I talked to about a dozen local officials across Iowa. They absolutely love the Iowa Flood center and all the information it affords them. The gauges are connected to an online mapping system they use all the time. Here's one local official, an emergency coordinator named Rick Wolfkol from Buchanan County, Iowa.

[Emergency Coordinator Rick Wolfkol]

We just had a proposal from a developer come through, and they were proposing putting a 30 home subdivision right in the flood waste. So the meeting I went to, I said, you realize this area has been underwater every time a frog farts. And that is literally what I said. So I am not about putting 30 families in harm's way.

[David Leonhardt]

This mapping system lets officials game out where to build, how to prepare for extreme weather, and whether to risk lives to rescue stranded residents. For example, during a major flood in 2024, one local official called the gage developer Larry Weber, asking if he could risk taking boats into the flooded streets to resc 300 people.

[Larry Weber]

So then we run our model. We give water velocities in all the streets and say, you know, you're better to go down 3rd Avenue to get to this street, to go to there, you know, and give them that kind of information.

[David Leonhardt]

Larry would love for other states to do what he's done in Iowa. He gave me a price tag. He said the average state could do it for about $2 million to start and then about half a million a year to maintain it. That is a small fraction of the tens of billions of dollars most states spend every year overall. For now, Iowa is the only state in the country with a system like this one. City officials elsewhere have to rely on data from the National Weather Service and FEMA maps from the federal government, which are notoriously limited. The interface looks like it's from Internet 1.0. It's clunky. I tried looking up my address in Washington, D.C. and that part of the map hasn't been updated since 2010. Is just not that useful. But it's not just a tech design problem. Back in the 1960s, Congress mandated that the federal government create flood maps for major rivers and the coasts. But Congress didn't say anything about small tributaries or streams, areas like Duck Creek. And while the FEMA maps were designed to account for hurricanes. The models don't account for intense bursts of rain that lead to flash flooding, which, because of climate change, will be a much bigger problem just as President Trump is rescinding federal support. It took an unprecedented flood back in 2008 for Iowa to invest in its system, one expert told me. That's typical. Few communities will do what Iowa has done until after the next catastrophic flood hits. But then, as I was wrapping up with this expert, he paused. Look, he told me, what President Trump is doing right now is kind of its own disaster. So it could be the motivator communities need to get moving on preparing for climate change. As federal officials continue to disappear, as federal funding evaporates, as the storms hit harder and furious floods overrun the riverbanks, Iowa has a plan plan a blueprint for other states to follow. They should use it.

[Show Host]

If you like this show, follow it on YouTube, Spotify or apple. The opinions is produced by derek arthur, vishaka darba, victoria chamberlain and gillian weinberger. It's edited by gillian weinberger, jasmine romero and kari pitkin. Mixing by carol sabaro. Original music by isaac jones, sonia herrero, pat mccusker, carol saburo, efim shapiro and amin sahota. The fact check team is kate sinclair, mary marge locker and michelle harris. The head of operations is shannon busta. Audience support by christina samulewski. The director of opinion shows is annie rose strasser.

[David Leonhardt]

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