La Crosse mayor thanks city staff for emergency response to third-highest Mississippi River flood on record

La Crosse’s mayor thanked city staffers Thursday for helping the community get through the worst local flooding in over 20 years.

At the monthly city council meeting, Mayor Mitch Reynolds said the city came out of the flooding in an “extraordinarily healthy fashion.”

“We had a communication process in place,” Reynolds said. “We got together right away, everybody knew their roles. I can’t be more complimentary to how our staff handled the third-highest recorded flood on record here in La Crosse.”

The crest of 15.89 feet in La Crosse on April 26 was third only to the marks set in 1965 and 2001. It surpassed the previous No. 3 flood from 1969 by just 19-hundredths of an inch.

“We did have some damage to parks, some damage to streets and to trails,” according to Reynolds, “and certainly folks on the north side, as they always do, the groundwater levels meant some very wet basements and some significant issues they had to deal with.”

The mayor thanked city workers from several departments, who carried out a communication and emergency plan for the flooding.

The National Weather Service – La Crosse said high water in every major river town between Wabasha, Minn., and Guttenberg, Iowa, was among the five highest floods on record in those places.