8.46 inches!Heavy rains pour down on county

A deluge of rainfall throughout the weekend, caused water on road signs to be put up around Bureau County including this one on the Tiskilwa Bottom Road. Several area roads were flooded, and some were even closed. At press time on Monday, only a few roads remained impassable. See more photos at www.bcrnews.com. (BCR photo/Lyle Ganther)

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PRINCETON — Bureau County is still mopping up from the weekend rains.

Non-stop heavy rains caused the cancellations of numerous outdoor activities this weekend and sent county residents searching for sump pumps and mops.

By Monday, the Princeton Water Treatment Plant had recorded 8.46 inches of rainfall from Thursday through Sunday, with 6.15 of those inches falling on Saturday. The rest of the county was about the same.

Princeton Superintendent of Water Mike Eggers said it’s obviously very unusual to have that much rain in such a short period of time. Water usage for the city was also up a bit during the weekend, probably with people washing out and cleaning up things, he said.

People venturing out this weekend to see the flooded fields and roads may have been halted in their travels by “Road Closed” signs, according to one area official.

Bureau County Engineer John Gross said the county highway department had stretches of seven roads closed on Sunday morning due to standing water on the roads and bridges. By noon Monday, the county had reopened Backbone Road, west of Princeton; County Highway 11, north out of LaMoille; and the Van Orin Blacktop, south of town. Crews hoped to reopen County Roads 2200 and 2600 North later Monday afternoon.

The Tiskilwa Bottom Road will remain closed a few more days due to the extensive flooding on that road, Gross said.

The water-covered roads were located throughout the county, essentially along the Big Bureau Creek drainage areas, Gross said. The water level in Big Bureau Creek was estimated this weekend at 16 feet, which is near the record high level of 16.3 feet, Gross said.

On Monday afternoon, Gross was headed to the Mineral area to check out the status of a road along the Green River.

Though water levels are going down, the repair work to the damaged roads will take some time, Gross said. However, there didn’t appear to be any structural damage to the county bridges themselves, he added.

Dover Township Road Commissioner Dan Schafer said a bottom support beam has been broken on the Red Covered Bridge, probably from a log being carried downstream. Representatives from the Illinois Department of Transportation, which manages the bridge, have already been down to look at the damage, Schafer said. It’s up to the state engineers to determine if the bridge is safe to cross with the broken support sill. For now, the Red Covered Bridge road will remain closed, he said.

The heavy weekend rains also caused at least two area school districts, Princeton and LaMoille, to run buses only where they could.

LaMoille Superintendent Collette Sutton announced early Monday morning district buses would not go on any gravel roads. The buses would travel only on blacktops and highways. Parents living on gravel roads would be responsible for getting their children to school.

School attendance was good on Monday morning, Sutton said. With the rains now over and the roads clearing, she expected the buses to run their regular routes today, Tuesday.

As far as any rain damage to the LaMoille schools, Sutton said there was no major problems with any of the buildings. However, she heard several reports of flooded basements in the LaMoille area. In fact, flooded basements have been reported throughout the county.

Bureau County residents should have at least a week to continue its drying out and cleaning up efforts.

On Monday, meteorologist James Zahara of WQAD NewsChannel 8 television in the Quad Cities said things are looking up, as far as the weather is concerned. High temperatures are expected this week to be in the mid-to-high 70s. The next chance of rain isn’t expected until early next week, he said.

  However, with rain a definite possibility for next week, it may still be too soon to put away the mops.