Page 4 - ARUBA TODAY

A4 U.S. NEWS
Monday 29 July 2019
Mississippi River city ponders a wall it has long rejected

By SCOTT McFETRIDGE Davenport residents have
MARGERY A. BECK largely supported a mod-
Associated Press est containment system
DAVENPORT, Iowa (AP) — that includes a wide strip of
Hundreds of communities grass and Nahant Marsh, a
line the Mississippi River on 305-acre wetland.
its 2,348-mile journey to the During more serious flood-
Gulf of Mexico, but Daven- ing, large sand-filled tem-
port, Iowa, stands out for porary barriers can be
the simple reason that peo- placed on River Drive,
ple there can actually dip which runs parallel to the
their toes in the river with- river, to protect the low-
out scaling a flood wall, le- lying business district. Most
vee or other impediment. homes are safely perched
It's a point of pride in Dav- on the hills rising steeply to
enport, a city of 100,000 the north.
people that calls itself Io- But this spring, separate
wa's front porch and which crests repeatedly pres-
has repeatedly tolerated sured and finally breached
the floods that have long the barriers, causing an es-
since convinced all other timated $30 million in lost
major riverfront cities to revenue and damage.
build concrete or dirt walls. A vendor shack near the Mississippi River shows high water marks from past floods, Tuesday, July "For a week or two, people
"It's the personality of the 16, 2019, in Davenport, Iowa. were boating down the
community," said Kelli Associated Press street," said Grubbs, who
Grubbs, who runs a busi- rushed to save expensive
ness a few blocks from the that the river has finally heavier rainstorms that, ing the gently sloping lawn equipment in her virtual re-
nearly half-mile-wide river. seeped back to its banks, combined with spring that dips down to the river, ality gaming business when
"There is just a great love of business owners and city snowmelt, will swell the river they wonder if a downtown water began surging inside.
the river." officials are confronting a to ever higher levels. that has seen roughly $500 Davenport residents also
That love is being tested this painful question: Can they Davenport is one of the million in investment in re- couldn't help but notice
summer after record-set- still remain connected with many communities across cent years can survive be- that across the river in Rock
ting floods broke through the river without being the nation struggling with ing awash and cut off from Island, Illinois — where a
temporary barriers and for overwhelmed by it? their past assumptions the rest of the city so fre- permanent floodwall was
weeks inundated some of Looming over the discus- about the weather. Even quently. erected after floods in 1993
Davenport's trendiest res- sions is an acknowledge- as residents scoff at the This spring a key road was — the city stayed almost
taurants and shops with ment of what's likely com- prospect of a concrete closed for 100 days and completely dry. Betten-
foul-smelling water. Now ing from climate change: wall or rocky levee replac- fans couldn't reach the dorf and Moline, Illinois, the
riverside minor league other two communities that
baseball stadium. A popu- make up the Quad Cities,
lar brewery credited with also have floodwalls and
spurring a downtown re- didn't flood.
vival is still closed because Mayor Frank Klipsch has
its equipment was sub- formed a task force to
merged. consider options, which in-
Of the 15 biggest floods in clude setting aside more
Davenport's history, seven land that could be open
have occurred since 2008. for flooding and improving
"Obviously, the weather the system of temporary
is not getting any better," barriers protecting the city's
said Kyle Carter, executive nine miles of riverfront.
director of the Downtown "It's not so simple as 'let's
Davenport Partnership, a go build a wall,' " Klipsch
business group. "Regardless said. "Our riverfront is one of
of why you think it's hap- the major attributes of our
pening, it's happening." community. We want to be
Davenport owes much of able to maintain that and
its roughly 200-year-old his- embrace the Mississippi
tory to the Mississippi River, River."
which was instrumental One factor is the $175 mil-
in the area's selection as lion or higher cost of a flood
a fort. The river allowed wall that would have to be
steamboats to reach the mostly locally funded. But
community and later led another is that an expand-
to bridges that connected ed buffer would be less re-
people and products to liable and require a lot of
large cities to the east. property.
That history is one reason Environmentalists support
that despite repeated giving the river more room
flooding in the last 40 years instead of a wall, but the
— especially severe in 1969, pragmatic concerns weigh
1975, 1993 and 2001 — heavy.q