ALTON, Ill. — Alton has been fighting rising waters for a month now.
While it's been exhausting, officials are doing everything they can to protect their city.
Mayor Brent Walker says: "We run around the clock on this. The city is in a state of emergency."
Alton is seeing record flooding once again in the start of June. The projected crest is 39 feet, which would take the second place record.
But this isn't the first time the city has been fighting floods. 1993 marked the historic year when Alton got hit with 42 feet.
Robert Barnhart, director of the Public Works Department, says he remembers the flooding back in '93, and it looked like a bomb went off.
In order to avoid the same situation, city leaders are learning from the past. They've come up with new ways to save their city this time around.
Crew made a stackable wall, close to 1,100 feet. "Stack a concrete wall, it's heavy," Barnhart said. "It's not going to move and we'll line it with plastic and make it a one-sided pool and it works."
For the first time, they sent a diver down to the sewer system to swim around and plug up pipes underground to stop the back pressure. "You can build the wall as high as you like, but if there’s water and pipes underground that will fill up, you’re not doing much. You just insert a balloon, inflate it and water can’t come in or out," Barnhart adds.
If they weren't successful with this dive, officials say they would have lost downtown. Fortunately, it went smoothly.
Beyond that, downtown is not only a central point for pumping -- it's also an economic driver for the city, which is why it's crucial to save it.
"This is one of our bigger retail areas in the city and generates a lot of revenue for the city," Mayor Walker said. "So it's incredibly important that we protect this asset."