“It’s life on the river,” Sue Eller said Monday as people fished from her back porch, though only one scrawny catfish was biting. “You take the bad with the good.”
As record-breaking floods have torn through the Midwest this spring, towns have looked nervously toward levees and flood walls that protect them from inundation. When some levees were breached, destroying farms and homes in Nebraska, Iowa and Missouri, politicians pledged to build them back taller, stronger, bigger.
Other places, including Grafton, where the Mississippi crested Monday, have taken a different approach to riverfront living. There are no levees here, no protection from the river’s natural sprawl, so residents have grown all too accustomed to cleaning up behind devastating floods. But as the high water seems to come more often and at ever higher levels, they say they are frustrated by a sense that levees elsewhere have left Grafton even more exposed. In an arms race of barriers along the Mississippi, they say, places like Grafton are losing.
“Every time they build a levee or raise one, it hurts everybody without a levee,” said Peter Allen, an owner of The Loading Dock restaurant in Grafton, which has been closed for much of this spring because of the floods. “Flooding, it’s natural, and the river used to be able to handle it a lot better.”
For generations, Grafton residents made a bargain with nature. The river gave the town a reason for being, drawing tourists who spend money in the bars and nights in the inns, where they have unimpeded river views. In return, Grafton’s 650 or so residents either moved up onto a reliably dry bluff or sacrificed the lower floors of their homes to the Mississippi.
Floods were always a risk, but in the last decade they have become an annual or twice-annual plight. They damage property, force long detours on trips to the grocery store and drive away tourists. The 32.1-foot crest Monday — flood stage starts at 18 feet — was the fourth-highest mark recorded in Grafton going back to the 1800s. It was high enough to cover parking lots and fill some riverfront buildings and nearly submerge street signs. Nine of Grafton’s 20 highest crests have occurred since 2008.
“It’s frightening,” said the mayor, Rick Eberlin, who said he hoped that the water would recede in time for Memorial Day, when peak tourism season starts and when a new gondola-style attraction is scheduled to open.
Scientists have attributed the uptick in flooding to increased rainfall in the Midwest, an effect of climate change, and the continuing efforts to constrict the river. In an ever changing patchwork of protection, cities and towns have long sought new ways to keep the water away. Burlington, Iowa, has worked in recent years to install a floodwall. In Illinois, some rural levee districts have been accused of building beyond their authorized height, a point of bitterness for those downstream.
“There’s always going to be winners and losers when it comes to levees,” said Jonathan Remo, an associate professor of geography at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. “When you create big levees, you’re pushing water onto somebody else.”
Heavy rains expected this week could worsen problems along the Mississippi River, which has already been above flood stage for well over a month in some areas. Some people who live along the river said they believed they were at a tipping point — a moment when the entire region needed to rethink the wisdom of having so many levees, especially in rural areas with few people.
“You’ve got hundreds of miles of waterway leveed off that probably can’t stay like that,” said Colin Wellenkamp, the executive director of the Mississippi River Cities and Towns Initiative, which represents municipal governments on the river.
Grafton’s laissez-faire approach to flood control is part fiscal necessity and part business strategy. Spending tens of millions of dollars on a floodwall is not practical, Eberlin said, and doing so would jeopardize Grafton’s main appeal to tourists, many of whom come from St. Louis, about 40 miles to the south, to be near the water. The town’s strategy also has environmental benefits, according to experts who warned that the competition to build bigger levees elsewhere is dangerous and expensive.
“This is an arms race against Mother Nature,” said David Stokes, the executive director of the Great Rivers Habitat Alliance, which opposes expanding levees and building in floodplains. “Mother Nature will win.”
Grafton’s strategy is distinct. Even many agrarian sections of the river are protected by levees, including the Sny Island Levee Drainage District, upstream from Grafton, which shields farmland along a fertile stretch of Illinois riverfront and has been accused of building its levees too high. The mayor and others in Grafton blame Sny Island and other rural levee districts for some of their flooding woes. The Sny Island district’s superintendent, Mike Reed, did not respond to an interview request.
“While the Sny and the entire region are in the middle of a flood fight to protect our communities, any political discussion about levee heights is counterproductive and does nothing to help the people impacted by the rising waters,” said Christian G. Morgan, a spokesman for the district, in an emailed statement.
For decades, Grafton has sought balance between respecting the river’s power and embracing its proximity. After record-setting floods devastated the Midwest in 1993, many on Grafton’s waterfront accepted federal buyouts for their homes. Some moved onto the bluff. A few hundred people left town. Businesses continued to operate along the river.
Davenport, Iowa, the largest city on the river without permanent flood protection, has faced a similar dilemma. Over decades, Davenport residents have repeatedly decided against building a floodwall, dissuaded both by the cost and a fear of losing their connection to the river.
But last week, as the Mississippi River reached record levels in Iowa, a temporary flood barrier installed in downtown Davenport was breached, swamping businesses and forcing firefighters to rescue people. Much of the area remained underwater this week, said Mayor Frank Klipsch, who said it was too soon to say whether his city now would reconsider building a floodwall.
“We understand that if we do not stop or absorb some of the water, it’s got to go somewhere,” Klipsch said.
In waterlogged Grafton, where river levels were expected to fall in the coming days, residents looked forward to a reprieve.
The Ellers, who had gone without laundry and warm showers, spoke excitedly about moving their water heater and washing machine back downstairs when the floods receded. Joe and Jan DeSherlia, who were commuting to their office by pontoon boat Monday, were eager to reopen their gift shop and winery. And Allen, the restaurant owner and a Grafton alderman, said it would take about a week after the water fell to clean up The Loading Dock and get the approval of health inspectors to resume serving catfish fritters.
“It’s brutal, it’s tough,” Allen said. “The risk is still worth it.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.