Davenport’s River Drive on April 30th. (RI photo)
Workers in Davenport have been removing the sand-filled HESCO barriers this week that kept back a surge of water on the Mississippi River. The river is receding fast after nearing record flood stage from snowmelt that came down from Minnesota.
Tim Baldwin was around in 2019 when the flood waters inundated his building in downtown Davenport — but he says was feeling pretty confident in the work the city had done to keep his block safe this time. “We had no worries at all that that wall was going to fail,” Baldwin says. The city doubled the size and height of the wall after the water breached the wall in 2019. It held through the crest of 21.5 feet.
“We saw it creep up to one of its highest points we’ve ever seen it creep up on that wall before. There was a lot of wall left to go we could have handled a lot more water I think and again no concerns whatsoever,” according to Baldwin. Pete Stopulos owns several buildings that were damaged by the downtown flooding in 2019 — but also didn’t see a repeat this year.
” Really, I think the major take away was the plan worked. In 2019, we all hoped the city would build the wall they did this time. Obliviously, the blueprint was there and they executed it and it worked quite well,” he says.
Baldwin says they did lose some business at his Front Street Brewery and Tap Room as traffic was limited by road closures to the downtown. He’s counting on the Bix 7 Road Race and the 50th RAGBRAI to recoup some of that lost revenue.
(By Zachary Smith, Iowa Public Radio)