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.
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