BURLINGTON, Iowa - Going up piece by piece, crews place rebar and pour concrete to create Burlington's flood wall.
The project started nearly a year ago, it's the first phase of a $26.2 million Flood Mitigation Plan.
"Now we'll be able to protect The Port of Burlington and a lot of the downtown that we weren't able to before," said Nick MacGregor, Asst. City Manager.
Businesses in downtown Burlington have gone through many flooding events. One of the biggest was back in 2008 where water levels at Two Rivers Bank and Trust got up to 25.1 feet.
"In the past we've had to bring in generators to hook up to make sure we can keep our operation up and going," said Matt Shinn, President of Two Rivers Bank and Trust.
The flood wall will have permanent and removable walls.
It will protect the city from rising waters up to 28 feet, that's higher than the flood stage which is 15 feet.
A good sign for downtown businesses, "This should take care of the flooding in the future and hopefully we'll never have to use a HESCO barriers again," said Flinn.