Continued favorable weather forecasts, dropping levels in the Coralville reservoir and lower-than-anticipated flow and elevation of the Iowa River through Iowa City are giving the University of Iowa a chance to catch its collective breath and begin taking a longer view of campus operations through the summer.
The UI’s eight-week summer session begins Tuesday, June 11, and Vice President for Student Life Tom Rocklin and student government leaders will be communicating with incoming students about vehicle and foot access to and around campus, building closures, class locations, and other helpful information.
With North Dubuque Street currently closed, the UI encourages students approaching Iowa City from Interstate 80 to take the Dodge Street exit if traveling from the east and the 1st Avenue exit in Coralville if traveling from the west.
Students are also encouraged to check their course listing on ISIS for the latest class locations before arriving. Art Building West, Music West (located in the Museum of Art building), and Theatre Building are all closed, as is Mayflower Residence Hall.
The UI’s six-week summer session is slated to begin as scheduled on June 24.
Although the campus largely continues to operate normally, UI officials say they remain vigilant and well aware that fortunes could change swiftly with another round of appreciable rainfall in the coming weeks or months. They also warn people to avoid areas where flood protection measures are being installed or are already in place, including walkways on the east and west sides of the river, pedestrian bridges, HESCO barriers and sandbag walls, pumps, manhole covers and buildings, parking lots and roads that have been closed.
Weather forecasts for the area call for a third to ¾ of an inch of rain though Tuesday night, and another ¼ inch Wednesday through Thursday. Rain is forecast for the weekend but the amount likely to fall in the area is still uncertain.
The Coralville reservoir is expected to now peak at 709 feet (down from the previous estimate of 710 feet) on Thursday, June 6, which would put it three feet below the 712 foot dam crest. The U.S. Corps of Engineers will maintain the current controlled outflow from the dam at 18,400 cubic feet per second (cfs) until June 12, then reduce it incrementally to 15,000, 12,000 and 10,000 cfs to lower the reservoir level an average of one foot per day.
Meanwhile, the UI is suspending its daily media briefings but will continue to push out the latest UI flood information via Iowa Now and other channels.
For ongoing updates, University of Iowa Communication and Marketing (UCM) has established an Iowa Now hub for the latest information about flood preparations at now.uiowa.edu/keywords/flood-updates-2013, and flood-related FAQs can be found here. Additionally, UCM is providing information via Twitter (hashtag #UIFloodUpdates).
Questions about flood preparations and related issues may be directed via email to uiflood-questions@uiowa.edu. A member of the UCM staff will try to track down answers as soon as possible or refer queries to appropriate sources.