Pioneer Press

By Kristi Miller

As rivers in Minnesota continue to rise during the melting of a historic winter snowfall, Sen. Amy Klobuchar said Sunday it appeared the state would “make it through the flood.”

Klobuchar joined other officials, including St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter, at Harriet Island on Sunday to give an update to flood predictions.

She credited many reasons for why it appeared the rising river water would be held back, including levees in St. Paul created years ago by the Army Corp of Engineers.

“If we didn’t have these levees, it would be so much worse,” she said, noting that in St. Paul, the Mississippi River had risen to 17.8 feet. Major flood stage is 17 feet.

“If it got up to 19.02 feet it would be in the top 10 floods we’ve had in St. Paul history,” she said.

As of 8 p.m. Sunday, the Mississippi River was at 17.74 feet and is expected to crest at 18.7 feet Thursday night.

Klobuchar said one of the factors making a difference in projected flood levels is the way snow has melted in stages, which has allowed the ground to warm and absorb some of the runoff.

“All of those things conspired in a good way so we are where we are today in announcements of positive news,” Klobuchar said, “in that it looks like we’re going to make it through this flood. But we still all have to follow the rules and just hope we don’t have a gigantic rainstorm in the next few weeks.”

Carter said the river levels have been a critical challenge for the city and why a local flood emergency was declared last week. “It is easy to see that our river is at an extremely high level and we expect it to get even higher through the course of this week.”

Even as the water recedes, people should stay away from the river until Ramsey County has evaluated the area, said Ramsey County Commissioner Trista MatasCastillo. “Let the county make sure the infrastructure is safe before people come down to the river.”

In addition, officials said Sunday they don’t expect any other road closures.