BUFFALO, Iowa — Dale O’Donnell bought his small brick home only 100 yards or so from the Mississippi River because he has enjoys watching the river and wanted a good view from his front porch.
He got his money’s worth Monday as the Mississippi crested at a near-record high just feet from his home, which was surrounded by sandbags and with a sump pump hose snaking from his basement.
“It was a lot of work to get the sandbags in place but then it was just a matter of watching and hoping it goes down,” said O’Donnell, a 79-year-old retiree who bought the house three years ago. “I’ll sit on the porch and drink a cup of coffee in the morning or couple beers in the evening and see everything pass in front of me.”
O’Donnell thought his home would survive unscathed from the flooding, and that also appeared to be the case in Davenport, a city of 100,000 just a few miles north of Buffalo.
After rising for weeks, the Mississippi River reached its peak over the weekend in parts of southwest Wisconsin and northeast Iowa. It was cresting at midday Monday in Davenport and the neighboring cities of Bettendorf, Iowa, and across the river in Illinois at Rock Island and Moline.
The peak was slightly lower than forecast but still high enough to test the region’s flood defenses and to keep officials on guard. Many larger cities have flood walls but Davenport relies on temporary sand-filled barriers and allows the river to flood in riverfront parks.
The rising river, caused by a surge of water from melting snowfall to the north, will likely rank in the top ten of all time in many places, but the National Weather Service still said river levels will generally remain well below past records. Forecasts call for little rain in the coming ten days, so once the river crests it should soon begin a slow decline that will last for at least two weeks.
Despite the good news, in the next few days officials will be checking their floodwalls and sandbag barriers closely. Others, though, were flocking to Mississippi to see the giant river.
Friends Jimi Williams and Joseph Anderson of Davenport strapped kayaks atop their car and drove to the city’s downtown, where they put the boats into the water and made a leisurely mile-long paddle along River Drive, which is normally busy with traffic but is now under several feet of water.
“It’s smooth sailing for sure and traffic is light,” Williams joked. “I haven’t hit a red light, and you never can say that on River Drive.”