Pool 14 on the Mississippi River

The river has dropped three feet here already, just a week after flood stage.  The dock went half way out today, on purpose.  We have been frantic busy.  We moved all the stuff back down to the cottage and we are here for the summer.  I can’t take a picture of the empty garage in Bettendorf because the automatic garage door opener failed and it is stuck in the closed position.  We have everything unpacked here at the cottage except the garage.  We did clean out some stuff in the process.  But we are fostering a shy purebred Welsh Cardi Corgi female, so there is even more chaos than normal.  And the big dog decided she wants to sit outside all the time and sits down and won’t move –hard to make a 100 pound dog move.  More later.

We have backed off the crest a bit and we did not get flooded!!  Rain up north is predicted, but they don’t think it will cause the river to go back up much, but then one never knows.  We plan on moving the furniture back to the cottage this weekend.

Here are the update photos

Looks like we have a problem with the boat lift:

Sightseers, tourists, they were all driving up and down Canal Shore Drive this weekend.  The road runs in front of our house, between the house and river.  Frankly, they were a nuisance.  They did not offer to get out and help.  Rather they just kept driving when we were walking back and forth over the road.  They even seemed to be annoyed when the pick up truck was blocking the road while pulling the log out of the river.  They were not driving as fast as the summer tourists but they were still a nuisance. 

Weather was nasty today, it even snowed.  We went checked on the level, did not seem too bad.

Notice something missing?

How about the gangway?  I am told it is secured under the dock.

Here is a video of the deep water rushing past the I-80 bridge piers.  The normal river level is about six blocks down:       http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ocLfMxd204

At lock and dam 14, both the roller gates and tainter gates were wide open, letting the river go free.

The river is almost at 13 feet at lock and dam which puts it at moderate flood stage.  It is not yet over our shore, but it is really rising.  No water in the culverts yet either.  We did a lot of work today, pulling logs out of the river, sending them downstream, picking up sycamore branches (very messy trees), mowing the grass, taking 40 bales of wet hay from the back of the house and taking the RV back to Bettendorf to wait out the crest.

Jamie, from next door, and our son Nick helped with the logs. 

And remember that log that was headed towards our dock?  We pulled it out of the river with a chain and pick up truck, and here it is:

And then they had to get the logs out of Spike’s dock which is just downstream.  His dock is fixed and you can see it is partly under water.

Check out the level here:

Crest is tomorrow, that is what they say now.

In two days we are supposed to go over major flood stage.  Here is what it looks like today:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sW276XhAx78

That is our new champion Cardigan Welsh Corgi barking in the background.  That is Russ.  9 months old and he has an opinion.  Check out his blog since he has something to say:

http://www.cardicorgicapers.blogspot.com/

Check out the pictures I took today back down at the foot of the lock and dam.  The road was closed, so we walked down there, along with a lot of anglers.  The fishing must be good in a flood, perch and buffalo.

Meanwhile, the rollers are wide open, completely raised off the river bed and letting the river go.  The Corps does that at flood time because these are not really meant to control flooding, but rather to maintain the pool level for navigation.

Lock and dam 15 is the largest roller dam in the world.  Here are interesting links that describe roller dams fishing, and the navigation channel construction:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roller_dam

http://www.ifishillinois.org/profiles/rivers&creeks/Mississippi/missi.htm

http://www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/rmr/2/contents.htm

I did make it to downtown Davenport today.  The city blocked off river drive, and started construction of earthen dikes covered in plastic on the street.  The dirt replaces sandbags and they are putting it far enough away from the river that it should have some effect.

There has been a lot of rain in already saturated northern Iowa the last few days, and the prediction is that the river will go over major flood stage this week.  Of course, it is at its worst near downtown Davenport.

Check out the photos and links at our local newspapers:

http://www.qconline.com/

http://qconline.com/archives/qco/display.php?id=384313

You can see a video of Davenport city workers constructing an earthen dike to keep the floodwaters out of the main part of the downtown.  And you can see the sandbag dike and the water up over the levee in downtown Davenport.  You can be sure that spot where I took the video last week below lock and dam 15 is now under water and closed off.

http://www.qctimes.com/

We are going to Leclaire this afternoon to rescue the RV before Canal Shore might close.  I will put up new pictures then.

Here is a photo of our twin bridges from Moline IL to Bettendorf IA.  There is a plan to replace these bridges in about ten years.

http://www.bistateonline.org/ser/tra/mrc_str.shtml