Mississippi breaches levee in town near Davenport

Mike Pringle leans against sandbags while helping protect a neighbor's home in Camanche, Iowa, from floodwaters Monday

Iowa town braces for river crest Tuesday

In this story: Streets buckling all over town Should taxpayers bail city out? RELATED STORIES, SITES

DAVENPORT, Iowa (CNN) -- Rising floodwaters covered a minor league ballpark almost to the top of the outfield fence and looked for other conquests Monday as the only major city without a flood wall along the flood-prone upper Mississippi River fought to keep its temporary levees and dikes secure.

Across the wide river from Davenport, the Mississippi stretched into Moline. A small levee broke Monday afternoon, flooding 15 to 20 properties on the eastern edge of the city and leading authorities to evacuate residents of six houses.

Just 15 miles north of Davenport in the Iowa community of Le Claire, the river breached a quarter-mile stretch of a sandbag levee Monday, town officials said.

Eight homes in the town of 3,000 had to be evacuated. There are no reports of injuries or major damage.

VIDEO CNN's Bob Franken reports on flooding in the town of Davenport, Iowa Play video (QuickTime, Real or Windows Media)    INTERACTIVE Techniques for fighting floodwaters    CNN WEATHER FORECASTS Davenport, IA La Crosse, WI Shakopee, WI Grand Forks, ND Granite Falls, MN    RESOURCES CNN weather satellite: U.S. North Central

With Davenport's sandbag dikes built to handle a flood level of 23 feet, the river was at 21.9 feet at midday. The National Weather Service has forecast a flood crest of 22.5 feet for Tuesday night, just short of the record level of 22.63 feet.

The Iowa National Guard put another 80 troops on the front line in Davenport on Monday, bringing the total number of troops bagging sand and tending to the levees in downtown to more than 180, said Guard spokesman Col. Robert King. Smaller groups of soldiers have been deployed to Marquette and McGregor.

Even with little margin for error, Davenport Mayor Phil Yerrington kept an optimistic tone.

"I think we've done this good. I think we're going to hold out," Yerrington said. "I think the dikes are going to hold. This water is going to go away and we're going to get back to normal."

Streets buckling all over town

Davenport's public works director, Dee Bruemmer, said the crest won't go away anytime soon.

Workers help add sandbags on top of the levee protecting Keithsburg, Illinois, on Monday

"It looks like we're going to be over 22 feet for several days into the next week, and so it's going to take a lot of manpower" to maintain the levees and dikes, she said.

The rising water has put tremendous pressure on the levees and the riverfront stormwater sewer system. River water is bubbling up through manhole covers, storm drains, and just about anywhere it can find a crack to squirt through.

"What you've done is kind of defeated your purpose because you're keeping the main body of water back, but it's all coming underneath the sandbag dike and pressurizing itself up through the manholes," the mayor said.

He said streets are buckling all over town, even up to a third of a mile away from the floodwaters.

Public works crews and the Iowa National Guard have had to pile sandbags on top of manhole covers to slow the flow and to keep the water pressure from blowing the covers off.

High winds have also added to the city's headaches.

"The winds are blowing out of the south, and that's the worst possible direction, because it puts even more pressure against the dams," Yerrington said.

The wind chill has driven temperatures down to 23 degrees Fahrenheit, making flood control even more difficult.

Should taxpayers bail city out?

Yerrington has had to defend the city's decision after the 1993 floods not to build a permanent flood wall. The motivation was financial, he said.

"We've made a conscientious decision over the years that an unobstructed view of the river ... generates $100 million in tourism money," Yerrington said. "So we've decided against that."

In Washington, Joe Allbaugh, the director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, told reporters the federal government is ready to help, but he suggested Davenport needs to take more steps to prevent flooding.

"The question is how many times will the American taxpayer have to step in and take care of this flooding, which could be easily prevented by building dikes and levees," he said after meeting with President Bush at the White House. Allbaugh said flood mitigation efforts are "something that we should do."

Allbaugh said he is going to Davenport later this week at the president's request and will discuss flood control measures with city officials then..

Davenport lost its battle to protect the home of the local minor-league baseball team, the Quad City River Bandits. Sunday morning, concrete slabs at the northwest corner of John O'Donnell Stadium gave way because of groundwater pressure, and authorities feared the situation would worsen before the river's expected crest.

The River Bandits have been forced to take their home schedule on the road. Home games are being split between Riverview Stadium in Clinton, Iowa, about 30 miles to the north, and Black Hawk College across the river in Moline, Illinois. The team's Web site said the River Bandits hope to return to the stadium by May 15.

Sunday afternoon, city officials were going door to door in a southwest Davenport neighborhood, distributing leaflets with relocation plans, if it becomes necessary for residents to evacuate the area, Nahra said.

"(We) want to make sure you're prepared in case anything happens," City Council member Roxanna Moritz told an elderly resident. "Just in case we come in and ask you to leave."

She told another resident in the threatened neighborhood, "You need to be prepared ... if it's in the middle of the night, you'll just hear sirens out here, people knocking on your doors."

The city leaflet suggested residents pre-pack valuables or keepsakes to help speed evacuation.

The break in Moline began at 2 p.m. (3 p.m. EDT) as a small rupture in a dike. As it grew, an outer levee was unable to contain the water and, by evening, six feet of water filled a tavern and a small business, said Moline Police Chief Steve Etheridge.

"We're swamped," he said.

Volunteers worked to shore up the levee, but 40 mph gusts of wind were working against them. "It's so windy today that it's just beating the levies to death," Etheridge said. "White capping on the river is doing severe damage to a lot of the levees."

"Floodwaters are rising inside the stadium," city government spokeswoman Jennifer Nahra said.

In the upper Midwest, the Mississippi River has flooded communities in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Illinois, as well as Iowa.

The Coast Guard has shut down more than 400 miles of the river to commercial traffic, because of the high water levels and the threat that waves could pose to levees and dikes.

Davenport ballpark flooded as Guard sends more troops
April 22, 2001
Iowa levees feel weight of Mississippi
April 21, 2001
More rain forecast for flooded Midwest
April 20, 2001
Long weekend of rain threatens flooded Midwest
April 19, 2001
Mississippi edging up banks of Quad Cities area
April 18, 2001

Minnesota Department of Public Safety
http://www.guard.state.ia.us/main.html
The National Weather Servicee

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