4/12/93
By: Martha Parsons
Courier-Post Staff Writer

Hannibal Street Department workers got some on-the-job training this morning as they installed two gates on the newly built Mississippi River flood wall for the first time. The employees mainly had watched when construction workers set up the gates the first time ever in early March.

Five street department employees and four Bleigh Construction workers set up the 11-ton, gates at Center and Hill streets after weather forecasters predicted Thursday the river would crest at 21.3 feet Sunday. The crest prediction decreased to 21.1 feet late this morning, 5.1 feet above technical flood stage of 16 feet.

The river has been rising steadily all week, up 2.18 feet since last Sunday. City buildings are threatened at a river level of around 21 feet, officials say. No rain is predicted until Tuesday at the earliest.

Street Department employee Raymond Nicosia said he was glad the department finally was getting a chance to put up gates to the wall, which has been able to provide flood protection since December. The gates measure 40 feet wide and 13 feet tall.

"Everybody's new at it," he said.

But installation still went smoothly. Workers hooked the first gate to ropes attached to a crane, which lifted the gate onto a flatbed trailer. After driving to Center Street, workers used the crane and cables and ropes to unload the gate and suspend it vertically above the wall opening. Rubber pads between the cable and the gate prevented the gate's steel from cutting the cable. Workers then lowered the gate slowly into place, fitting it into the opening.

"We were afraid we'd get called out last night and have to do it during the dark," said street department employee Dan Tourney.

A small group of neighboring business people and residents gathered to watch the move. Harold Norman was glad to see the gate go up, he said. He had to move his gas station to Third Street after his business on South Main Street was flooded in 1973.

"It's going to be really wonderful for the people down here," he said.

The Broadway Avenue wall opening was not closed because water is not predicted to rise above the ground level there, said John Hark, Hannibal and Marion County emergency management director and street department superintendent. If the river climbs to 21.6 feet or higher, the city would install that gate, he said.

It cost city taxpayers about $3,000 the first time the gates were installed. The cost should be lower this time because the move did not occur on a weekend again, when workers are paid overtime wages. The future installation contract with Bleigh Construction is still up in the air, Hark said. American Cyanamid has offered to loan the use of its crane to the city to move the flood wall gates.

The installation, which began at 8 a.m. and ended around 9:30 a.m. without a hitch, was a learning experience for the department, Hark said.

"Our people have never set them up, so this is kind of a training exercise," he said. "We'll have to have a flood or two in order to see what we can do," he said. "If it was raining a foot or two a day, we would have to move a whole lot quicker."

The gates will remain up until Monday or Tuesday, when the river is on its way down. A inch rainfall 100 miles north of Hannibal would still have a drastic affect on the water level here, he said.

"Nobody, nobody, can predict what that river is going to do," he said. "I've seen a lot of strange things. I've seen crest predictions (drastically) revised in 24 hours. You don't build a flood protection levy and sit and let it come in."