Area drainage districts still have their eyes on the rising river.

At the newly merged Lima-Hunt district, which includes Meyer, Illinois, residents and farmers are poised to take action if needed.

Farmer and levee district commissioner Sam Zumwalt is watching and waiting for the updated river crest predictions before he shifts gears from farming to flood fighting.

Zumwalt said, "I'm going to wait and see what's actually going to happen before we get too uptight about the whole thing."

But while the district is watching the river, it's also still recovering from the flood in 2008. It's been nearly three years since the levee broke here. Commissioners say they're still waiting for the levees to get back to normal.

Although structural work on the levees themselves is completed, crews still have to grate and seed the sod levee you see here. Both the Lima-Hunt Drainage district commissioners and the Army Corps of engineers agree the levees will protect the district from any potential flooding this year. Folks in the district say they don't understand why it's taking so long.

Are you frustrated?

Zumwalt said, "Yes and everyone out here is frustrated because they know how the country was built and it wasn't through regulation."

Why is it taking so long?

Ron Fournier a spokesperson with the Army Corps of Engineers said, "I'm not sure what taking so long means. We had 28 levee systems to repair after the 2008 flood and got started on them in 2009.We had to do the contracting work and the engineering work to get going.  We started with the main stem levee breaches because they are the most important. Then we went into the pump stations followed by the tie backs.The tie backs are what we are working on in Hunt-Lima. We had a lot of issues with high water after the '08 flood.  In 2010 there was a lot of high water on the Mississippi.  The Hunt-Lima situation the borrow site where we get our clay was under water for most of 2010 so we didn't have the ability to get to the material until late in 2010. That's when new stepped up our process and got that levee up and running."

Regardless of the reasons why the clock on these repairs has kept running, Zumwalt says folks here are just glad they didn't see these river crest predictions last year or even the year before. If that had happened, this area with 30 thousand acres along with homes and businesses would have been unprotected from the mighty Mississippi.

Zumwalt said, "The levee wasn't done last year.  We kept telling them that."

The Lima-Hunt District does plan to send folks out to patrol the levee beginning Thursday.

Tractors and bulldozers are also on standby if needed for flood fighting.