Mississippi River expected to crest Monday in Carroll and Whiteside counties

Major flooding on the Mississippi River was being reported from points between Dubuque, Iowa and Burlington, Iowa, fed by the melting snowpack in northern Minnesota and Wisconsin.

The river was expected to have its first crest in that zone sometime Saturday in the vicinity of Dubuque, the National Weather Service reported.

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A large beaver works on a branch alongside the access road at Lock & Dam 13 on Thursday as Mississippi River water levels continued to rise with a crest expected over the weekend. (Earleen Hinton/Shaw Media)

In Savanna, six downtown streets are closed, the fire department reported. Three streets have limited access.

Photos published by the Carroll County Sheriff’s department showed that floodwaters filled in low areas on both sides of the railroad tracks that run parallel to the river.

But the 1,300-foot wall of 60,000 sandbags was at last report doing its job of keeping water from areas east of Main Street, which is also Illinois Route 84.

Downstream, things were a little different. A section of Route 84 between Fulton and Albany was already underwater.

At Fulton, where flood stage is 16 feet, the river was at 21.53 feet on Friday afternoon. The crest is expected sometime after 2 p.m. Sunday.

If the water reaches its forecast crest of 22.3 feet, it will be the third highest water mark since records have been kept, surpassing the flood of 1993.

Fulton is unlikely to be in danger of flooding because it has a levee.

The Associated Press reported that Mayor Bob Gallagher of Bettendorf is confident the flood wall will protect his town. A crest of 21.6 feet is expected Monday or Tuesday in the Quad Cities.

The AP also said the Army Corps of Engineers has closed more than a dozen locks. But the closures won’t last as long as in 2019, when they were down for three months.

“We’re expecting this to be a relatively quick flood,” said Drew Smith of the Army Corps of Engineers in St. Louis.

The American Red Cross announced it opened two shelters: former Select Specialty Hospital location, 111 W. Kimberly Road, Davenport and at Bethel Wesley United Methodist Church, 1201 13th St., Moline. Emergency meal sites will be open noon to 2 p.m. and 5 to 7 p.m. at the Pleasant Valley Fire Station, 24495 Valley Drive, Bettendorf, Iowa, at the old fire station on Campbell’s Island in East Moline, and the parking lot at South Concord and Utah Avenue in Davenport, Iowa.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.