Parkview Terrace to flood again only 5 years after the last flood.

Courtesy of the Iowa City Press Citizen 05/31/2013

City workers planted “road closed” signs on North Dubuque Street, while across the river and beyond a swamped Lower City Park, water began creeping up backyards on Normandy Drive.

Johnson County braced Thursday for imminent flooding, with officials projecting that the Iowa River will top the Coralville Reservoir spillway next week, as it did during the 1993 and 2008 disasters.

With more rain pounding the area and the reservoir continuing to rise, the Corps of Engineers upped the dam’s outflow to 14,000 cubic feet per second and intends to raise it again to 17,000 cfs Friday. Projections show the water rising to the spillway’s elevation of 712 feet Tuesday, before peaking at 713.5 feet and 22,500 cfs June 8 or 9. The record high level at Coralville Lake was 717.02 feet in 2008.

“That’s a lot less than where we were in ’93 and ’08, but nonetheless it is going over the spillway with that projection,” said county supervisor Terrence Neuzil, who is serving as the public information officer for the county’s Emergency Management Agency.

The current outflow projections are based solely on the forecast through Friday, with another 1 to 2 inches expected Friday in the Iowa River basin. Any significant rainfall beyond that forecast would cause the outflow projections to shift upward and could increase the potential for creek flooding, as well.

The city closed Dubuque Street from Park Road to Foster Road after river water poured out of the storm sewers mid-afternoon near Mayflower Hall, where the University of Iowa was erecting a massive flood barrier. Iowa City Public Works Director Rick Fosse said that stretch of North Dubuque Street will be closed until at least mid-June.

The river also inundated much of Lower City Park, where the city had dissembled and moved the amusement rides before closing the park’s entrance. Additional closures are expected in the coming days, the city warned.

In the Parkview Terrace neighborhood, where the city bought out and razed 87 homes after the 2008 flood, several residents were seen in their driveways moving belongings into vehicles as the river drew nearer.

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Alex Geoly, and his roommates, who rent a house on Normandy Drive, were moving their guitars and other music equipment from their ground level to second floor. Geoly, 21, who has lived in the house for three or four months, was staying put for the time being, but worried about access if and when the street flooded.

He wasn’t sure how the house, which was rebuilt and raised by the property owner after 2008, would hold up against a flood.

“We’ve never been tested against something like this, but we’re going to find out real soon,” Geoly said.

A block away, Cliff Pirnat, 70, a longtime Manor Drive resident who rebuilt after 2008 and declined a buyout, was waiting for more information before moving belongings to his second level.

“I expected this to happen, but I didn’t expect it to happen again this soon,” Pirnat said of another flood.

No mandatory evacuations were issued Thursday, but officials were preparing for the possibility. The Johnson County Board of Supervisors approved a civil emergency proclamation, which authorizes the board chairperson to issue orders of mandatory evacuation. Likewise, Iowa City Mayor Matt Hayek signed a similar proclamation.

Fosse said city workers were going door-to-door Thursday afternoon distributing information to residents in Parkview Terrace and the Idyllwild subdivisions, and it planned to do the same Friday in the Cole and Thatcher mobile home parks on the south side of the city. Cole Mobile Home Court was formerly Baculis Mobile Home Court.

“One is the contact at the United Way for assistance if they need help preparing for the flooding, or preparing to leave their home, whatever it is they want to do,” Fosse said. “We’re also giving them a checklist, so that if it gets to the point where we have evacuations, key things they’ll want to do before they leave.”

The Johnson County Sheriff’s office also began asking residents in low-lying areas, including including those in the Izaak Walton Road area south of Iowa City and off Stewart Road just north of the city, to voluntarily evacuate.

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MidAmerican Energy is making plans to establish a mobile substation to replace its existing substation on First Avenue in Coralville, Neuzil said. The Red Cross and Iowa National Guard are also on standby, and preparations are also being made at the Johnson County Fairgrounds to accommodate displace residents or animals. Johnson County SEATS is also available to transport residents, Neuzil said.

“At this point I think the message is fairly clear from the Army Corps of Engineers that we need to be prepared for this water to go over the Coralville dam, and we hope that we don’t see a whole lot more rain other than the potential of 1 to 2 inches this afternoon through Friday,” Neuzil said.

Dee Goldman, operations manager at the Coralville Lake for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, said the outflow had not been ramped up earlier because of existing high-water conditions further south.

“We’re here to protect all of the citizens, not just right hear around Iowa City, but from Burlington on up to Iowa City,” Goldman said. “There’s still some flooding going on down there, so we kept our gates at a lower level, allowing the lake to function as it’s supposed to, to allow the water to come into it. As we start seeing that it’s coming up, and the projections start getting closer and closer to our spillway discharge, at that time we start working a lot with the local communities, the county, things of that nature to make sure they’re prepared and can handle the additional water.”

Reach Josh O’Leary at 887-5415 or joleary@press-citizen.com.