May 3 (UPI) -- Blocks of Davenport, Iowa, remained flooded Thursday after a levee that was supposed to have kept high Mississippi River water out breached earlier in the week.
Relief will not come soon with the river expecting to crest at a record 22.7 feet sometime Friday, beating the old 1993 record of 22.63 feet, according to the Quad-City Times.
Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds is expected to tour flooded areas Friday and meet with governmental officials in the area. She issued a disaster proclamation for nearby Clinton County on Wednesday, making it the 61st county out of 99 designated as disaster areas since severe flooding started in the state in March.
The Scott County Emergency Management Agency, where Davenport is located, is now gathering information in hopes to get a federal disaster declaration.
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While no rain is in the weekend forecast for the Davenport area, meteorologists are predicting that a new front could drop 1.5 inches of rain per day for three consecutive days.
That could be more bad news for downtown Davenport, which saw portions of its downtown flood within moments when its temporary levee failed Tuesday when the Mississippi River spilled over its banks. Some blocks saw as much as six feet of water from the flooding.
"We saw it rush in," Rebecca Nicke, co-owner of the vintage shot Abernathy, told the Des Moines Register Tuesday. "And it went from the building being dry, to three to four feet of water in less than five minutes. So we just started screaming to each other, 'The water's here! Get out!'"
Davenport mayor Frank Klipsch told Fox News that he did not know when downtown businesses will reopen with much the area being soaked in contaminated water for several days.
"We gotta wait for that to recede so we can actually come in and make some long-term changes," Klipsch said.
In Michigan, the Detroit area also experienced damaging flood waters midweek. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer declared a state of emergency for Wayne County on Thursday after 3,000 homes there were affected by flooding, scrambling local officials to deal with the problem, the Detroit News reported.
