This is Roald Tweet on Rock Island.
Tornados, earthquakes, and lightning have this in common: they come quick without warning, like cats pouncing on mice. Hurricanes, volcanos, and forest fires move more slowly, give warning, and even then, they often veer off, suspending their sentence of doom.
But, of all natural disasters, only floods of the kind that build on the Mississippi River announce their sentence far ahead of time, and then carry it out without hope of reprieve, pardon, or stay of execution.
Mississippi floods result from a combination of factors over a large drainage basin: ground water, temperature, snow cover, rain. These are usually in place by March. We know there will be a flood. Weeks ahead, the Weather Service can tell from its measuring devices throughout the basin how high the flood crest will be, and when it will arrive. "On the morning of June Twenty-Second," the sentence reads, "the river will reach your front porch on second avenue in Davenport, Iowa."
And so, the flood crest comes down the river over a period of days. Now the crest is at Stillwater, Minnesota, where the Minnesota River sends it higher; now it has just passed Winona, and is headed for Lansing, Iowa, increasing with each flooded tributary. Reports are that it has now reached Dubuque and will shortly be at Belleview.
So slowly does the flood come that it seems like a dream, except that water has already begun spilling over the Davenport levee into the park. Tourists, their homes unaffected by the flood, come down to watch the water rise. Kids ride bicycles along the edge. The crest is now at Clinton and headed this way. One by one, streets are closed off as the water rises.
It all seems so peaceful—even kind—unlike the voracious tornado sucking roofs from houses and barns. It is easy to forget that the gentle water lapping up the street will rip levees apart and wrench houses from foundations.
We are not even aware that the crest has come, and passed, and is now heading downstream to carry out more sentences.
Rock Island Lines with Roald Tweet is underwritten by Augustana College, Rock Island, Illinois.
