CARVER, Minn. — The Minnesota River is on the rise.
"We were expecting this," said Courtney Johnson, the mayor of the city of Carver. "We were prepared for this."
According to the National Weather Service, the Minnesota River reached minor flood stage Wednesday in Jordan -- just a few miles down the road from Carver. Those levels are expected to rise throughout the week and could approach a moderate flood stage by the middle of next week.
"It just keeps looking like it's going up, and up, and up," Johnson said.
Carver already has a levee, pumps, and other mitigation strategies in place to prevent flooding in the historic downtown area. The city has also closed Riverside Park due to high water this spring and could add more floodwalls if needed.
It's a major contrast compared to last year's drought.
"The river was so low that it looked like we might be able to walk across it if we would have tried," Johnson said. "It was really, really low, which is what kind of makes this flood even more significant -- it has come up so much."
Of course, high river levels are not unique to Carver this spring.
In Delano, crews put up barriers downtown as the river crested at major flood stage on Wednesday. In Stillwater, people have put sandbags all along the banks of the St. Croix, with a crest into major flood stage expected this weekend. Both Hastings and St. Paul have also started closing roads, and the St. Paul Airport even put up its own flood barriers this week as the Mississippi River continues to rise.
But these communities, including Carver, are no stranger to flooding.
"And with that," Johnson said, "we wait and see what the river will bring to us."
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