Maquoketa Escapes Serious Damage, Anamosa Waits for Crest
By Mary Sharp
Residents watch flood waters from the Maquoketa River pass under a bridge on North Main St. in Maquoketa, Iowa Sunday July 25, 2010. The Lake Delhi dam failed Saturday as rising floodwater from the Maquoketa River ate a 30-foot-wide hole in it. Areas below the dam, including in Hopkinton and Monticello were evacuated. (AP Photo/Quad-City Times, Kevin E. Schmidt)
By
KCRG Intern
Story Created:
Jul 25, 2010 at 7:41 PM CST
Story Updated:
Jul 26, 2010 at 4:13 PM CST
ANAMOSA, Iowa - The Maquoketa River has crested in Maquoketa without serious damage. Now Anamosa waits for the crest of the Wapsipinicon.
The Maquoketa River crested in Maquoketa at 4:40 a.m. Monday at 35.26 feet, a new record crest for the Jackson County city. The river is now falling, and was at 34.49 feet as of 9:15 a.m.
Jackson County Emergency Management coordinator Lyn Medinger said he doesn't anticipate any serious damage in Maquoketa. He said after a call for help went out on the city's local radio station, hundreds of volunteers helped sandbag Saturday and Sunday around the city's wastewater treatment plant and municipal utility facility. Both are still operational.
"Everything's playing out as planned," Medinger said. "We went with everything as planned and we won."
Now, he said, officials are waiting for the water to recede to assess any possible damage.
In Jones County, the Wapsipinicon River is expected to crest at 25.9 feet in Anamosa around 1 a.m. Tuesday, but that time could be revised. A crest of 25.9 feet would be the second-highest on record at Anamosa, close to the record of 26.18 feet set Aug. 13, 2008.
The river stood at 23.37 feet as of 9:15 a.m.
No serious flooding is expected in Anamosa, according to Brenda Leonard, the county’s Emergency Management coordinator.
And in a break of sorts, no rain fell in eastern Iowa on Sunday and none is in the forecast for Monday. Leonard said the Wapsi is likely to flood an Anamosa convenience store and cause problems in Stone City, Olin and Oxford Junction, where sandbagging is under way.
In Monticello, the Maquoketa River floodwaters were receding on Sunday, Leonard said. She estimated 20 to 30 homes were flooded there.
But the Great Jones County Fair, she noted, had a big turnout on Sunday, its last day. Some fair buildings and the main stage flooded on Saturday.
The flood also disabled the city’s sewer plant, which will be offline for a week. Monticello residents are being asked to conserve water.
Interestingly, Leonard said she asked the National Weather Service last year to create a model about what would happen downriver — and how fast it would happen — if the Lake Delhi Dam should ever fail on the Maquoketa River.
That model was somewhat helpful on Saturday, she said. But most helpful, she said, was state Sen. Tom Hancock calling the Iowa State Patrol and asking it to put a plane in the air for aerial photographs. Those pictures showed the Maquoketa spreading out below the breached dam, with no huge surge of water headed toward Hopkinton and Monticello.
A Monticello City Council member with a GPS device and a Jones County Sheriff’s reserve officer also helped by driving around the city and marking elevations on city streets. That, along with computer-generated maps, helped predict problem areas and deploy personnel.
Leonard said the Lake Delhi dam officials have always done a good job notifying emergency management when they increase the flow out of the lake, which they’d done after very heavy rains in Delaware County last week.
“But how do you anticipate what more than 10 inches of rain in two days will do,” she said.
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