Nearly forgotten in this year of horrific financial news, presidential politics and Hurricane Ike, is the devastation wrought by flooding in Iowa in June.

Nearly 4,000 homes in Cedar Rapids were evacuated when the rain-swollen Cedar River washed over its banks. The flood placed an estimated 100 city bocks blocks underwater.

Enter about 130 International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers members from Michigan, who traveled to Cedar Rapids in the summer-long effort to get the corn milling operations of one of the area's major employers, Cargill, back up and running. The Michigan wiremen comprised about half of the total crew of electricians on the job.

"It was amazing, there were electricians from every IBEW local in the Lower Peninsula," said Eric Kane, a 13-year member of IBEW Local 252, who spent six weeks this summer at the Cargill plant. "There were so many hands out there because of the high levels of unemployment in Michigan. But the people in Iowa seemed very appreciative that we were able to get out there and help them rebuild. It was phenomenal, they gave us solid gold treatment."

Along with the Cargill plant, a Quaker Oats plant was also flooded, together taking jobs away from some 3,000 workers. The Cargill plant provides cornstarch, corn syrup and other corn-related products to the food industry. The floods also caused the shutdown of two power plants in Cedar Rapids and closed hundreds of businesses. All told, Kane said about 1,000 wiremen were in town last summer to help rebuild the city. He said electricians comprised the vast majority of trades who traveled to Cedar Rapids

Kane said he arrived in Cedar Rapids on July 7 and stayed through mid-August. He said the electricians did tests on the Cargill plant's wire and insulation, replacing them as needed, and replaced panels and motor control centers, among other tasks. The water, he said, rose about 15 feet in the plant before receding. Electrician crews worked mind-numbing 7-12s to get the plant back up to speed.

"It was a real mess," Kane said, "and it was really hot. It's a huge plant so we must have walked five to 10 miles a day. But I give them credit. They really tried to make it as easy on us as possible."

Cargill took care of them with daily free catered lunches and dinners and air-conditioned limo-bus rides from the parking lot. "They were very concerned about jobsite safety, and there were daily safety meetings," Kane said. "They were a lot of thanks and atta-boys, and sometimes I wanted to remind them that we weren't doing this as volunteers, we were getting paid."

Kane said 52 members of Cedar Rapids IBEW Local 405 were affected by the flood, and 14 lost their home. The local union was overwhelmed with work at the Cargill plant alone, which usually hires a union workforce. Kane expressed amazement at the ability of the IBEW members and the entire community to attempt to bounce back from the flood.

"It was the most rewarding experience of my career," Kane said. "It was seriously depressing to see the housing, which was devastated, to say the least. There was still garbage everywhere when I got there, but by the time we left, their yards were clean and a lot of the debris was gone, although it still looked like a flood zone. But those were people who didn't wait for help from FEMA or anybody else to restart their lives."

Kane said until he found a room at a local Cedar Rapids hotel, he had to commute an hour from Camp Courageous, a facility for the mentally and physically handicapped, which had rooms available and only charged them $12 a night.

He was joined in his travels by fellow Local 252 member Erik Machleit, who said the area "was just devastated. You don't appreciate what you have in life until you lose it. For me, going there just brought about a sense of appreciation for life in general."

Both wiremen decided to drag up in August when there was a mass layoff at Cargill. They returned home to their families around Labor Day.

"There was unbelievable camaraderie, it was true unionism," Machleit said. "Everybody was out for everybody."

PART OF THE GROUP of electricians - all from Michigan - who helped restore power this summer to the flooded Cargill plant in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.