DES MOINES, Iowa — On Tuesday evening at 6 p.m., the city of Des Moines closed down George Flagg Parkway due to rising river levels.
The Raccoon River receded a bit on Wednesday, allowing the road to be fully open once again. But about half of the park was still inaccessible due to the water.
“I just came up to you and said the river runs through it. I mean, there it goes, you know, trees are going in there,” said Ellen Burnquist, who was biking around Des Moines Water Works Park. “And it doesn’t affect me that bad. Or I just take another way, you know, maybe I don’t know how far up they’re saying, you know, it’s the road is closed, that they can go straight on Fleur. And, you know, and I did the fact that we don’t mind because and we don’t have the traffic.”
The Cemetery Guy and crew restores damaged headstones in Oakwood Cemetery
Burnquist lives right off George Flagg, and doesn’t mind the slower traffic when the road is closed. But the Jasper Winery and other businesses are monitoring the river levels with outdoor events planned over the next several days.
“If it does close down in front of us, we do have a back entrance that we can use. And we have a map that we can send out to everyone to, you know, help, assist with directions getting here. But generally, this does stay open,” said Sydney Tallman, the Wedding and Events Director at Jasper Winery.
The winery has a free summer concert series starting Thursday at 6 p.m., and the plan is to hold those concerts weekly.
There is easy access to the winery from Fleur Drive so Tallman wasn’t too worried about the potential rising river levels. People coming from George Flagg westbound may have issues getting to the business if the road is closed during the concert tomorrow evening.