Quad-Cities hope for a break from flooding

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By Thomas Geyer | Wednesday, April 30, 2008 |

Davenport Public Works crews work Tuesday on the dike along East River Drive at the foot of Iowa Street. (Kevin E. Schmidt/Quad-City Times) Buy this Photo

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Dev Bastola stood alone in his Star gasoline station and convenience store at 1026 W. River Drive, across the street from Centennial Park in Davenport.

For the past three days, he has watched water drift by on River Drive. No one knows his business is open, even though they can get there through an alley off Myrtle Drive.

The Mississippi River was still slowly rising Tuesday night in the Quad-Cities, although the National Weather Service, Davenport, was expecting it to crest during the night. The river was holding steady at 19.24 feet at 10:30 p.m., up slightly from the 3 p.m. measurement of 19.21 feet. Flood stage is 15 feet in the Quad-Cities. That’s the eighth-highest level ever recorded in the Quad-Cities.

Usually at the Star station, there are chicken and potatoes cooking, hot dogs on the broiler and hot sandwiches in the warmer.

“There’s no reason to cook the food,” Bastola said Tuesday. “Those things are a straight loss. Why waste the meat?

“The gasoline pumps are working; there’s no problem there,” he added.

“The mayor of Davenport came by today and told us we need to put a sign,” he said. “So I’m going to call the sign maker tomorrow and have him put up a sign at 2nd and Myrtle streets for us.”

As he spoke, one of the few customers of the day wandered into the store, saw there was no fried chicken and left.

“For three days, I may have averaged maybe one customer an hour,” Bastola said. “I usually average 100 or more an hour.”

He hopes his business comes back as quickly as the river falls.

Hydrologist Jeff Zogg said the river was expected to crest Tuesday night, then drop a couple of tenths of a foot overnight. However, the river’s fall in the coming days could be affected by the amount of rain that is forecast for the rest of the week.

At Muscatine, Iowa, city workers put up floodgates on East 2nd Street and closed parts of Mississippi Drive as the Mississippi River reached flood stage there.

The Mississippi River is expected to crest today at 21.2 feet in Muscatine, 1.2 feet above flood stage, according to the National Weather Service. That level would tie with the sixth-highest crest the National Weather Service has on record, on April 26, 1969. The river was still rising Tuesday afternoon, when it was recorded at 20.95 feet.

Mad Creek inched within a foot of the deck on the East 2nd Street bridge as workers put up the flood gates. Traffic will be detoured — possibly into next week — until the water starts to recede.

Dan Werner, who owns Bend City Marine with his wife, Cheryl, said he wasn’t waiting for the water to rise any higher. He and an employee, several area business owners and acquaintances began filling about 30 tons of sand into sand bags at the beginning of the week.

“At 21.5 feet, we get about a foot of water in the front of our building,” Werner said of the store at 117 E. Mississippi Drive, Muscatine.

He said he had expected to sandbag after reading predictions the river would crest above 21 feet. Then he watched as the water rose about 5 inches on a fire hydrant in Riverside Park. Most of the park was under water, and Muscatine’s Pearl City Station and the Riverview Center also were under water.

“With the weather the way it’s been, I’d rather be doing this now instead of standing in water,” Werner said.

(The Muscatine Journal contributed to this story.)

Thomas Geyer can be contacted at (563) 383-2328 or tgeyer@qctimes.com.

How low will it go?

How fast the Mississippi River recedes will depend on how much rain falls locally and to the north of the Quad-Cities the rest of the week.

Meteorologist Bill Nichols of the National Weather Service, Davenport, said the greatest chances for heavier rains are to the north of Interstate 80.

“But these systems are still 48 hours out, so I would not be able to get more specific. We do have the potential for heavy rain, and we’re just going to have to watch it,” he said.

Widespread amounts of a half-inch to an inch are possible from tonight through Friday, “with the potential for higher amounts north of I-80 of 1 to 3 inches, but we’re just going to have to wait and see how things evolve.”

Depending on where the worst of the storms hit, there is the chance for “more water issues,” Nichols said.