The Illinois River crested in the central part of the state at an historic 29 and half feet Tuesday. Peoria Public Radio’s Tanya Koonce reports now Peoria’s assessing the potential for another surge of water.
The Illinois River is falling at about a tenth of a foot per hour and needs to recede below 24 feet to get behind the sea wall. But that be could delayed by a weekend snowmelt in the North. Peoria Emergency Manager DwainDeppolder says he’s encouraging riverfront business owners to check the Saturday temperatures in the Northern states:
“We won a huge battle, (but) the war is not over with yet. This could possibly affect us. It would be better off if you do not take your walls down. They did a lot of good flood mitigation. It’s best to leave them up until we see what’s going to happen.”
A seventy degree day in the Dakotas, Minnesota and Wisconsin would cause another surge of water that would impact the Mississippi River and could also back up the Illinois River to Peoria.