Coralville Lake drew a swarm of tourists this afternoon who wanted to see the high water, and they got what they expected.

"It looks pretty forceful," Sheri Parsons, of rural Iowa City, said as she viewed the filled lake basin from the Coralville Dam.

Water was rushing out of the dam's spillway at a rate of 15,000 cubic feet per second, splashing it forcefully into the air and spraying people who walked across a lightly flooded access road to the spillway to see the water.

People walked across the top of the spillway that is at 712 feet above sea level and the object of concern downstream in Coralville and Iowa City because the flooding there will only worsen if water goes over the spillway.

The lake's level was 710.47 feet above sea level at 4 p.m. and projected to be 710.91 Sunday morning.

"We live around here, I wanted to see it," Melissa Parsons, Sheri Parson's daughter and a senior-to-be at the University of Northern Iowa, said about the lake's attraction.

"I can't believe all the boats that are out," Melissa Parsons said.