If you’ve taken a walk along Riverside Park in the last couple of days, you may have noticed that the Mississippi River is almost completely free. Only a couple of ice chunks remain.

That has led to some questions about flooding in the area, on a day that Governor Jim Doyle announced is Flood Safety Awareness Week. Although rivers around La Crosse aren’t flooding just yet, they have potential to in the coming weeks.

The last time the area there was a major flood in the area was in 2001, a spring that Maureen McCoy and her family remember well. That's because their home along a branch of the Black River flooded and they had to pump water out of their basement.

"That’s about all you could do was pump it out and I know a lot of the neighbors...people that live on the river, they had hoses coming out of their garages and you know you had to constantly keep pumping it out.”

Thankfully, the river hasn’t flooded badly since then.

"Since that time, we’ve had dry springs and gradual melts so flood risk has been significantly lower since then," said Doug Kerns, City of La Crosse Flood Plain Manager. "But that doesn’t mean conditions can’t change quickly.”

Kerns says La Crosse is one of the more complex areas in the state when it comes to flooding. That’s because three rivers run through the city…The Black River, The La Crosse River and the Mississippi River.

"So, in some situations, the mississippi may be flooding and backing up the La Crosse River or vice versa and the La Crosse River may adversely be affecting the Mississippi," Kerns said.

The National Weather Service uses a number of gauges throughout the city to monitor the water level of the rivers. Right now, the water level for the Mississippi sits at 7.5. Kerns says it’s not until about 10feet that they start getting concerned.

"At 12 feet, it is considered a flood stage, but the forecast for this area at least in the next 7 days is very minimal flood risk for this area," Kerns said.

But he says it’s always good to be prepared and have an evacuation plan: “If in fact, a flooding does occur, stay out of flood waters, don’t go in them whatsoever, don’t drive through them, don’t walk through them, don’t get near them.”

And he recommends getting flood insurance. McCoy says even though they’re outside the flood plain range, they have it anyway. And they plan on living in their waterfront property for years to come.

“There’s not a lot of waterfront property...so once you get it, you’d like to keep it.”

Kerns says more than 25% of all flood claims in the nation are from outside the flood zone.

If you would like to learn more about flooding in the La Crosse area, go to the city’s website--www.cityoflacrosse.org--and click on the flood button on the left-hand part of the page.