It's been two years since historic flood along the Lake Ontario shoreline caused property damage and closed businesses. 

Niagara County Emergency Services Coordinator Jonathan Schultz said the lake's water levels have risen five inches in the past 7-10 days.

“They’ve been cutting back the amount of water that they’ve been releasing from the lake due to outflows at the Ottawa River on the other side of the dam,” Schultz said.

The outflows on April 6 were 306,500 cubic feet per second. It was only 197,800 cubic feet per second on Monday.

Schultz said more than 10,000 sandbags are in storage in Newfane and can be distributed at a moment’s notice. However, early predictions do not indicate a repeat of 2017.

“If you talk to National Weather Service, Army Corps of Engineers, they’re predicting maybe 5-6 inches higher than last year, which keeps us well below flooding,” Schultz said.

Newfane Town Supervisor Timothy Horanburg said he is watching Olcott Beach daily, hoping he doesn’t have to shut it down like he did two years ago.

He said a lot of time and money goes into preparing it.

“The trouble is we don’t want to clean it up and have one slight northeast storm just wipe it out again,” Horanburg said.

Monday’s water level was 246.86 inches. The peak level in 2017 was 249.1 inches.

Officials said they are monitoring the levels seven days a week.

“Hopefully many more nice calm sunny days like today, and a month from now, it’ll all be history,” said Dale Banker, Orleans County's director of emergency management.

Schultz said the best for residents to do is to be vigilant.

Anyone with concerns is encouraged to contact their municipal government.