For the fourth time this year, the Mississippi River has reached flood stage in the Quad Cities. And it's the second time Davenport has had to close River Drive and put up a temperary floodwall.
Public Works Director Nicole Gleason says flooding in the fall is still unusual, but doesn't think, as some believe, that flooding is occurring more often and at higher levels in the midwest.
"It seems like the timing is shifting more than anything. Normally we would see more in the spring and less of this happening in the fall. So yeah, the last couple of years we've had later floods than we would have normally seen."
She calls this just a "run of the mill flood," due to a lot of rain upstream.
Instead of doing their normal jobs, crews from the street and sewer departments worked downtown Tuesday, preparing for a crest over the weekend about 3.7 feet over flood stage.
"Primarily we would be doing street cleaning, filling potholes, and cleaning sewer lines. So some of that routine maintenance work, we just have to put it on the pause until the flood ends, then we just pick back up with our schedules."
Starting Wednesday, street crews will return to the regular duties but sewer department employees will be on flood duty 24 hours a day until the river begins to recede.
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