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Along the banks of the Des Moines River, flanking the approaches to the downtown bridges, big sheets of steel hold the soil in place. The top ends are exposed, and six or eight inches down from the top, each sheet has a hole about two inches in diameter.

A construction crew from Newton spent last Tuesday covering those holes with little squares of wood, gluing one piece on each face of each sheet. How many holes are you covering? I asked. Eleven hundred, they said.

So let’s not discount the amount of caution that can be generated by a major flood, even 15 years later.

Seems like a lot of work to keep the water from coming through a little bit sooner, I said. You wouldn’t think that if your place got flooded, would you, one of the workers said.

He had me there.

A little ways away, Matt Becker, a civil engineer with the city of Des Moines, supervised as workers filled in gaps alongside the streets and the railroad tracks with dirt, making sure the highest elevation of the levee was matched at every single point.

A fire truck sat a bit farther south, and one man stood next to it with binoculars. The fire and rescue team was looking for any spots where it might be convenient to launch a boat, he said. The usual spots were already underwater. With higher river levels on the way, they just assumed they would be called out at some point to save a life.

Over on Court Avenue, Don Short and others were busy at work in Sbrocco, the new wine bar that was scheduled to commence its grand opening any minute. But it’s hard to hold a grand opening when you’re boxing things up, hoisting the furniture and moving it all out the door. Makes it tough for customers to walk in.

“We brought everything over last Wednesday and opened Thursday,” said Short, a partner in the venture. “After four weeks of building out for the Winefest weekend.”

Business was fine during Winefest, he said. But then came the threat of “River Water Fest,” and although that draws lots of spectators, it’s not beneficial to running a business.

“We’re bringing 1,600 types of wine out of the basement,” Short said. “We already took out the brand-new carpet down there.” He was considering removal of the ground-floor carpet, too. And wondering how high the beautiful new furniture might need to be stacked.

He had a storage place handy, because he owns West End Architectural Salvage a few blocks away.

Pumps were running at the Whiteline Lofts on Southwest Fifth Street. The carpet was ruined at The Trattoria restaurant on Fourth Street.

At Des Moines Iron & Supply Co., across Southwest Third Street from the Science Center of Iowa, they’ve got lots of stuff that’s so big and heavy, you’d hate to move it out. They also have flood experience.

“It was almost up to the windowsills in ’93,” said Janine Mitrisin, the general manager and a 31-year veteran of the business. During the great flood of 15 years ago, she walked through chest-deep water to get to the building and swam out to shut off the gas, she said. They used a boat to haul out the computers.

“But we kept right on going,” Mitrisin said. “We were down just one day.”

This time, they already had taken the lower file drawers out of the desks and placed them on top of the desks. They hadn’t gotten started on the basement, which holds not only records, but company memorabilia.

“There’s a machine down there that was used to make wooden buggy wheels,” Mitrisin remarked. Every flood claims a few memories.

At that point, one thing had already gone wrong for Des Moines Iron. Mitrisin sent some employees to the East Side Library for sandbags, where they were told that they couldn’t have any, because residential needs came first.

Later in the day, Des Moines Public Works Director Bill Stowe said no, that’s not how it’s supposed to be done. Already, the fog of disaster was starting to settle in, creating misunderstandings and hard feelings.

But Mitrisin’s crew just went to Menard’s and bought a few tubes of sand for the door. Problem solved.

Up at Birdland Marina, the Des Moines Rowing Club was moving out. That’s when you know beyond a doubt that you’ve got way too much water.