It was sunny and warm in South Bend on Monday. And the river has receded quite a bit, but some roads and parks are still closed.
The St. Joseph River at South Bend is down to just over nine and a half feet. That’s still within major flood stage, but down three feet from where it peaked last week.
Sheryl Brown was out for a lunchtime walk around Bartlett Street in South Bend with three of her colleagues from Memorial Hospital.
She said they went out last Wednesday as well, “It’s definitely better than it was, but there’s still quite a bit of water there. The river’s quite high yet.”
A city employee with the Bureau of Waste Water came down the street as well. He couldn’t speak on tape.
His job is to go out and check that sensors that monitor the combined sewer overflow, a part of the water system that usually keeps sewage out of the river, are reading correctly.
He said right now the river is flowing into the sewer overflow, that means there’s nothing they can do to keep sewage out of the river, or the river out of the city system.
He said until the water recedes below the sewer overflow, the city can’t get in to assess damage or find out how much sewage is in the river.
The city is still asking residents with damage to report it to the County Emergency Management Agency at so it can give an accurate estimate for federal disaster aid reports.
