Editor's note: During June 2008, the University of Iowa sustained the worst natural disaster in its history when severe flooding sent the Iowa River over its banks and into the campus and Iowa City communities. As the UI celebrates near completion of its flood recovery efforts this fall, Iowa Now looks back at that challenging time when thousands of faculty, staff, students, and volunteers joined forces to ensure the UI continued to serve its students and community. This is just one of many inspiring stories.

In 2008, the UI endured a historic flood of the Iowa River, which damaged the Voxman Music Building, where Kayt Conrad's office was located, and the Theatre Building. Conrad was responsible for both.

Raised in Cedar Rapids, Conrad attended the College of William and Mary and St. John's College, where she earned a master's degree in liberal arts. She came to the UI in July 2006 as an administrator and has held the position since.

But just two years into her time at the UI, rising water was threatening her division. Conrad says that based on the early flood predictions, the Department of Risk Management, Insurance, and Loss Prevention was at first concerned about flooding only in the basements of the two buildings. Though Voxman's basement had only few items to clear out, the Theatre Building had a costume shop, offices, costume storage, and classrooms that needed to be evacuated.

As the predictions grew more dire, however, Conrad and her team had to make emergency arrangements to also vacate the first floors of both buildings, which proved to be a more difficult task than anyone had imagined.

"What was problematic was every room on the first floor of the School of Music had a piano of some size in it," says Conrad. "We knew we didn't have a lot of time."

As the water rose, division staff moved costumes, pianos, other instruments, and heavy equipment to the second floors of both buildings, as well to storage spaces elsewhere on campus.

But there was little Conrad and her staff could do about the organs in Voxman, which were installed into the building itself and couldn't to be moved on such short notice. Instead, she and her team sealed and sandbagged the doors to the organ studios.

"Unfortunately, we ran out of time," says Conrad. "Public safety came and chained the doors shut. We thought we had one more day, but we didn't."

Conrad says she remembers watching coverage of the flood unfold on CNN.

"It was horrific. We were allowed back into Voxman after several days, and it was a stinking, slick mess," she says. "There was mud all over the floors, and the desk drawers in my office were filled with water."

All but one of the Voxman organs sustained water damage, though the sandbags likely kept the water from rising as high as it did in other rooms. After the water receded, organ makers removed and repaired the damaged instruments. All of the repaired organs will be installed in the new Voxman Music Building, which will celebrate its grand opening on Oct. 21.

Meanwhile, it was an entire month before staff were allowed to re-enter the Theatre Building.

"There was an unused air shaft that water kept coming back through," says Conrad. "So every time they pumped the water out, 13 feet of water came right back into the basement."

The loss of those facilities forced Conrad and her team to get creative about securing temporary venues for the performing arts. Finding facilities that would accommodate the different needs of students and faculty required, at its height, dividing the Division of Performing Arts into 21 separate locations. But it worked.

"The efforts of our staff made it possible to start the fall semester on time, without canceling a single class," she says.

Concerts and other performances were held in the Iowa Memorial Union, in auditoriums around campus, and in the Old Capitol Senate Chamber, while the damage to recording spaces forced music professors to record off campus—some traveling as far as Iowa State University in Ames.

"The School of Music really bore the brunt of the flood," Conrad says. "You need space for those big instruments. You need facilities that are appropriate for music practice and theatrical rehearsals. We're loud. We don't make good neighbors."

Once Hancher, the new Voxman Music Building, and the Visual Arts Building open this fall, the Division of Performing Arts will be housed in seven locations, with the School of Music occupying Voxman, Hancher, and the new marching band facility. Conrad and her staff will also move into Voxman this fall.

"Getting into a venue where we can do all of those things in a building that's designed for that is going to be terrific," she says. "We'll be able to record music, hold performances, and teach classes in the new Voxman."

The Theatre Building has been repaired to its pre-flood conditions and will continue to present all theater productions. Its costume shop, which moved to Studio Arts after the flood, is slated to permanently relocate next door to the Theatre Building in 2017.

As flood recovery nears completion, Conrad says the obstacles of the past several years have strengthened her and her staff's resolve.

"I think it's made a lot of us more resilient," she says. "Things that would have bothered me 10 years ago I now just shrug my shoulders and go, 'We'll figure it out.'"

The University of Iowa will celebrate the grand opening of the new Voxman Music Building on Friday, Oct. 21. For details about that event, visit inspire.uiowa.edu.