Mayor Heddlesten has long sideburns and a mustache that curls around the corners of his mouth. The day we met, he was wearing his patriotic glasses, emblazoned with the American flag.
Audio clip of Weinberger: Are your eyeglasses, is it the red, white, and blue? Are they — oh, wow. They’re magnetic.
Audio clip of Heddlesten: So, they’re the — yeah — the eyeglasses that you can swap out.
I wanted to meet Mayor Heddlesten to hear about a harrowing stormy night last summer. The rain had started coming down that afternoon.
Audio clip of Heddlesten: I am hoping to have a nice, relaxing, calm evening and take the edge off, watch some TV, whatever. I had made myself a brandy old-fashioned.
Anthony soon realized that the rain was coming down pretty hard.
News clip: Flooding, a high possibility with these storms coming in this afternoon into the evening.
This was a week after the deadly flash floods in central Texas — the ones that hit Camp Mystic. Riverdale is also at high risk for floods. It sits at the confluence of two bodies of water, the Mississippi River and Duck Creek.
Audio clip of Heddlesten: We have more time to prepare on the Mississippi — usually days, at least, if not weeks, to prepare for whatever’s coming. Duck Creek’s a much flashier stream, so you’ve got hours to figure it out.
Because Riverdale is such a small town, Anthony serves as mayor only part time. In his day job, he’s a civil engineer for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. And he’s kind of a weather nerd — he’s got a whole weather station set up at his house.
[SOUND OF ALARM BEEPING]
Audio clip of Heddlesten: It sets off an alarm if it gets too high of a rainfall rate. So, it’s going off in the background. All the cues are telling me something’s going to go south here in my evening, right?
Clip of weather radio: Flash flood warning remains in effect until 9 p.m. this evening for southern Scott and Rock Island Counties.
Until recently, Mayor Heddlesten had help in situations like these, from the federal government. The feds ran a gauge on Duck Creek — a little brick house with a sensor inside. It measured the height of the creek and posted the information online. Local officials would use that information to make decisions about evacuations during storms.
But the mayor no longer had that crucial service at his disposal — in part because of President Trump and Elon Musk.
