Water, water everywhere
<p>A compact vehicle is engulfed by water Wednesday as it plows through water covering a section of Government Way near Tamarack RV Park in Coeur d’Alene.</p>
COEUR d'ALENE - Patty Kardash and her terrier, Hunter, were dressed to stay dry Wednesday.
It wasn't a downpour they needed to worry about as they walked along Government Way, but the giant, splashing wake as drivers hydroplaned past through 6 inches of melting snow and rainwater.
"It's rough walking on the sidewalk when it's all full up," said Kardash, who lives at the Tamarack RV Park. "You can get drenched."
City street crews placed caution signs on Government Way in front of the RV park and other areas where street drains clogged with snow and ice left ponds of water in the roadway. By afternoon, Prairie Avenue's pavement was beneath a foot of water, prompting a road closure between Huetter and Atlas roads.
"We had an almost-record 50.2 inches of snow between Jan. 28 and March 3 and it's all trying to melt at one time," climatologist Cliff Harris said. A warm southwesterly wind and a half-inch of rainfall on Wednesday made for "a lot of big puddles," he said.
A flood watch for urban areas and small streams in North Idaho remains in effect through Friday according to the National Weather Service.
Coeur d'Alene Street Superintendent Tim Martin said there was some "nuisance ponding" throughout the city and he expected crews would be working well into the evening clearing drains.
Post Falls crews used a backhoe to remove ice and snow after overflow from a farmer's field flooded an unfinished area of the Foxtail subdivision. Ross Point Road was closed from Pinevilla to Maplewood because of water on the roadway.
Though a flood watch was issued for the Coeur d'Alene River at Cataldo, the river was at 35.5 feet Wednesday afternoon, well below the flood stage of 43 feet.
The river was expected to rise to 42 feet on Friday, then subside, and rise to 42.73 feet on Monday before subsiding again.
The Kootenai County Office of Emergency Management wasn't anticipating significant flooding due in part to low lake levels.
"The river can flow into the lake unimpeded," said Doug Fredericks, the OEM's resource and preparedness specialist.
With lows in the mid to upper 30s, Harris said at least the melting mess won't turn to ice. Spring, he said, is just around the corner.
"March certainly came in as a frosty lion and I believe it will go out like a wimpy poodle," he said.