Mayor Heddlesten has lengthy sideburns and a mustache that curls across the corners of his mouth. The day we met, he was sporting his patriotic glasses, emblazoned with the American flag.
Audio clip of Weinberger: Are your eyeglasses, is it the pink, white, and blue? Are they — oh, wow. They’re magnetic.
Audio clip of Heddlesten: So, they’re the — yeah — the eyeglasses you could swap out.
I wished to satisfy Mayor Heddlesten to listen to a couple of harrowing stormy evening final summer season. The rain had began coming down that afternoon.
Audio clip of Heddlesten: I’m hoping to have a pleasant, enjoyable, calm night and take the sting off, watch some TV, no matter. I had made myself a brandy old school.
Anthony quickly realized that the rain was coming down fairly arduous.
Information clip: Flooding, a excessive chance with these storms coming on this afternoon into the night.
This was per week after the lethal flash floods in central Texas — those that hit Camp Mystic. Riverdale can be at excessive danger for floods. It sits on the confluence of two our bodies of water, the Mississippi River and Duck Creek.
Audio clip of Heddlesten: Now we have extra time to arrange on the Mississippi — often days, no less than, if not weeks, to arrange for no matter’s coming. Duck Creek’s a a lot flashier stream, so that you’ve acquired hours to determine it out.
As a result of Riverdale is such a small city, Anthony serves as mayor solely half time. In his day job, he’s a civil engineer for the U.S. Military Corps of Engineers. And he’s sort of a climate nerd — he’s acquired a complete climate station arrange at his home.
(SOUND OF ALARM BEEPING)
Audio clip of Heddlesten: It units off an alarm if it will get too excessive of a rainfall fee. So, it’s going off within the background. All of the cues are telling me one thing’s going to go south right here in my night, proper?
Clip of climate radio: Flash flood warning stays in impact till 9 p.m. this night for southern Scott and Rock Island Counties.
Till lately, Mayor Heddlesten had assist in conditions like these, from the federal authorities. The feds ran a gauge on Duck Creek — slightly brick home with a sensor inside. It measured the peak of the creek and posted the knowledge on-line. Native officers would use that data to make choices about evacuations throughout storms.
However the mayor not had that essential service at his disposal — partially due to President Trump and Elon Musk.
