Mounds of sand, gray plastic bags and plenty of shovels kept many Ames citizens busy yesterday filling sand bags in efforts to save their homes and businesses.

Starting at 5 a.m. Monday, the Ames Police and Fire Departments spent approximately two hours evacuating residents in flood-threatened areas and notifying area business owners about the dangers of rising water.

Ames Public Relations Officer Claire Bills said the city has very specific plans for responding to such emergencies and was ready to take action after hearing weather reports on Sunday night.

Bills and several other city officials monitoring the waters rode to and from flood areas in a mobile bus unit that served as the central area of communication and the place to dispatch people and volunteers.

“The rising water has forced the bus to move several times already,” Bills said. “It came up very fast and unexpectedly in some areas.”

Bills said the Skunk River crested at just under 16 feet, breaking the record high set in 1993. Squaw Creek crested at just over 15 feet, 3 feet below the level in the floods of ’93.

One area hit especially hard by the rising flood waters was the region of apartment complexes west of South Duff Avenue on South 5th Street.

Professional Property Management, the landlord for several apartment complexes in the area, spent the night evacuating apartment buildings and warning residents of the approaching flood waters.

By noon, nearly 30 volunteers were working frantically to keep water from entering the buildings. Several cars left in the parking lots had water lapping at their rooftops, and vacated residents looked on as building after building became surrounded by water.

Cindy Jorgensen, property manager of PPM, said the business called in all of their employees and at 6 a.m. they began to fill sandbags and build levies to surround the apartment buildings.

“We’ve already lost two [buildings] so far. Everything was new after we replaced it in 1993, but it looks like we’ll be doing that again,” Jorgensen said.

Bob and Cindy Slack, resident managers of Southview, River Birch, Oakridge, and Maple Glen apartment complexes in the same area, said they arrived around 6 a.m. Monday and at noon said it “looks like we’re going to be here awhile.”

Though the flooding did force many from their homes, people continued to show positive attitudes about the help efforts and the flooding in general.

Erin Lowe, resident of 227 S. 5th said, “I’m pretty impressed because people moved all their stuff out in a half hour.”

Diana Petersen and Carrier Kramer of Southview apartments learned of the approaching waters and put everything they had on chairs and put their television on top of the refrigerator. Petersen said, “I just hope we don’t get fined for having our bikes in our apartment.”

Apartments were not the only buildings caught by the floods. Jeff Bundy, co-owner of Century 21 Bowling Alley on South Duff, said his employees used 20-by-100 feet sheets of plastic and covered those with sand, then folded them over to create gigantic sandbags that were used to surround the building.

Bundy said Monday’s flood was not as bad as the flooding of ’93 when the bowling alley was flooded five times.

“This year we were more prepared and we know what to do about it,” Bundy said.

South Duff was not the only area of town affected. Businesses on the other side of town were also filling bags to keep the water from reaching their buildings.

The Dive Shop, 808 E. Lincoln Way, was one of those businesses working overtime to keep out the water. Pam Selch, whose husband runs the shop, notified him of potential flooding after she arrived to work next door at Nikkel and Associates Inc.

“I wasn’t concerned about the tanks and fins getting wet, other than having new products on the floor,” Selch said. She said they put all their merchandise on desks and counter tops and the only thing they probably did not save in time was the carpeting.

Sheila Lundt, member of the Ames Disaster Command Team, said Monday afternoon that the team arrived at the flood scenes around 10:30 p.m. Sunday. Since then, team members had been working non-stop “making sure we’re getting bags to where they need to be.”