Green River to reach record flood level in Geneseo

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By Dustin Lemmon and Linda Cook | Sunday, September 14, 2008 5:27 PM CDT | () comments

UPDATED: Heavy rains the last couple of days are expected to put the Green River in Geneseo, Ill., past its record flood level.

Mike McClure, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in the Quad-Cities, said the river is expected to crest Monday morning at 22 feet. The record is 18.77 feet from October 1998. At 4 p.m. today, the river was at 18.4 feet.

“We’ve had some overtopping of the river bank,” said Andy Ervin, meteorologist with the National Weather Service.

“The Green River is a little different than other rivers. It’s a small river,” Ervin said. “Much of the Green River in Henry County is largely controlled by agricultural levees that are along the banks of the river. Those tend to ... reduce the number of floods that would occur.

“We have seen the Green River rise to that 18-foot level,” Ervin said. “The bank overtopped, or the water has gone over the top of the bank, and that kind of eats down into the levee a little bit and allows water to flood the fields, which is unfortunate for those fields.

“It’s the same thing we’ve seen on the Mississippi on a much smaller scale,” he said. “The river may rise overnight to 18.7 feet. From there we’re really not expecting it to fall for another couple of days.”

The Geneseo police and Henry County Sheriff’s Department didn’t have any reports of road closures near the river this morning.

The Rock River also will go above its 12-foot flood stage this evening in Moline and will crest Tuesday morning at 12.5 feet Monday evening in Joslin, Ill.; and 13.1 feet Tuesday morning in Moline.

The storm system has dumped at least 6 inches of rain on the Quad-Cities in a two-day period.

Many area police departments, including Henry County, said streets that were closed because of flooding have started to re-open, including Interstate 280 from Milan, Ill., to Andalusia Road.

“We’re going to have clouds and few showers this evening, and generally cool conditions over the next 24 hours,” Ervin said. Highs tomorrow will reach only the middle 60s, but skies will remain dry. Highs will be in the upper 60s Tuesday.

“It should be a phenomenally nice week,” Ervin said.

“Hurricane Ike was what occurred last night and this morning,” he said. “Part of that also was associated with a tropical storm in the Pacific called Lowell that was partly involved in the big rain we had.”

The city desk can be contacted at (563) 383-2450 or newsroom@qctimes.com.