More than a foot of rain fell across central Iowa in two days over the Fourth of July weekend, sending Fourmile Creek to its second-highest level ever recorded at the Easton Boulevard gauge in Pleasant Hill. City officials say stormwater infrastructure improvements made in the years since a record 2018 flood kept this year's event from becoming a repeat disaster.

That 2018 flood, the only one on record worse than this year's, forced the evacuation of the Pleasant Valley Mobile Home Park and shut down Vandalia Road, Pleasant Hill Boulevard and Parkridge Avenue for days. This time, the city said, roads reopened quickly and widespread evacuations were not needed. Officials credited the response to public works, police and fire crews along with stormwater infrastructure completed in the years since.

Those projects include the Southeast Connector, which elevated the intersection of South Pleasant Hill Boulevard and Vandalia Road out of the floodplain, consolidated railroad crossings and connected stormwater detention facilities; a 2025 culvert reconstruction on Parkridge Avenue that replaced an undersized crossing with a 14-by-6-foot box culvert and new storm sewer; and bank stabilization along a Fourmile Creek tributary near the city cemetery, completed after a 2024 tornado, the city said.

The city said it plans to continue stormwater improvements and is will work with Polk County on restoration along Fourmile and Little Fourmile creeks as part of a long-term effort to reduce flood risk.