With Squaw Creek finally back in its banks, the university has been able to begin the process of assessing and recovering its damaged facilities on the east side of campus.

The events of Wednesday, Aug. 11 that turned the Hilton Coliseum floor into a 12-foot swimming pool threw a drastic curveball at the ISU community that will take several months to solve.

But since floodwaters have receded, the athletic department has been able to look past the swelling and will treat the situation as just a massive sprained ankle on the fall semester.

“Certainly it’s a challenge,” said Athletic Director Jamie Pollard in a news conference Thursday, Aug. 19. “It’s a challenge none of us would wish upon anybody, but we will get through this. Our coaches, our student-athletes and our staff have a lot of resolve. They have embraced it as a challenge and we will find a way to be stronger from it.”

Officials cannot present estimations on how much time and money will be spent on recovery, as it is too early in the process to interpret the full extent of the damage. Earliest approximations anticipate dollar amounts in the millions.

However, as the recovery process continues, one clear priority has been established for the athletic department this fall: to have Hilton ready to go for the first basketball game of the season on Nov. 4.

“We’re limited on what alternatives we’d have for basketball,” Pollard said. “In what capacity we’re able to open it is yet to be determined. There are long lien times on certain items that need to be ordered and we can’t just start procuring things immediately.”

While hopes are high for the basketball programs to stay on schedule, the flooding has left the volleyball program in the most severe predicament of all ISU sports.

Christy Johnson-Lynch’s squad lost its practice and game facility for essentially the entire season, and was forced to come up with quick alternatives with its season opener on Aug. 28 rapidly approaching.

The 2,000-seat gym at Ames High School will replace Hilton for all home matches this season, and practices have moved to the West Towne Courts while coaches will share offices with the women’s basketball program at the nearby Sukup Basketball Complex.

While it’s possible for some matches at the back end of the volleyball season to be played at Hilton, plans currently have the team at Ames High for the duration of the season for the sake of consistency.

“If we’re in a fortunate situation where it works to bring them back, we’ll make that decision at the appropriate time,” Pollard said. “But we don’t want to go into it by having them wait every week wondering when they’ll come back.”

The ISU soccer team watched its home field transform into a lake as well, and played its first scheduled home game Friday, Aug. 20 against Drake at the Prarie Ridge Sports Complex in Ankeny.

Fortunately, the Cyclones’ schedule doesn’t contain another home match until Friday, Sept. 17 against Iowa, and the team will be able to practice at the Bergstrom Indoor Facility while the field is being refurbished.

The athletic department is hopeful that at the very least the playing surface, along with surrounding intramural fields, can be turned from brown back to green in a short time frame.

“It’s Iowa in August, so our conditions for growing seed and other stuff like that is good,” said Dave Miller, director of operations for Facilities Planning and Management. “So we would have every reason to believe that the soccer area will come back relatively quickly.”

While all of this is being sorted out, members of the university are attempting to keep perspective on the damage despite how disruptive it has been.

Due to the efforts after the floods of 1993 and 2008, previous experience by many members of the university has the recovery process a full three weeks ahead of where it was one week after the floods 17 years ago.

Defensive measures taken at Jack Trice Stadium by the athletic department and football team on the morning of the flood has left football facilities in good shape, and there are no foreseeable problems for the Sept. 2 home opener.