Yucatan Floods 2016 Edition

Torrential rain and over saturated soil combined to cause more flooding in the SE Minnesota area with Yucatan Valley being no exception. We got off light compared to nearby parts of Iowa and Wisconsin, yet it is annoying that yet another “flood of the century” has hit our township. So far we’ve had this or worse levels of unwanted water in 2000, 2007, 2008, 2013, and now 2016.

Having gotten out and about later than I should have, I missed out on some of the event while discovering the bumper crop of densely packed corn concealed a great deal of the damage. This year saw a change in planting methods to double yields by sowing the seeds so close together that you can’t walk through a field anymore. As a consequence, there wasn’t much in the way of dramatic photographic material.

One Week Later: Scars of the Flood

A sunny July 1st provided an opportunity to get a close up look at two places in the Yucatan Valley heavily damaged by the flooding on June 23rd. First up is the bridge at the junction of County 4 and Hwy 76 which was the object of much government concern during the flood.

All the waters funneled to this location during the flood and exerted more force than I saw elsewhere. Approaching the bridge from County 4, you can see a damaged field and water left behind. The bank has been carved out more and there is an object sticking out of the ground with a plastic bag over it.

No, it isn’t debris. That’s a fiber optic cable that was severed by the flooding. It actually goes under the creek rather than on the bridge. Why was this done? To avoid being damaged by flooding. Best laid plans of mice and men…

It isn’t until you crest the hill to make the turn that the dramatic view is seen. A vast cornfield has been obliterated leaving sand and trees behind. The tractor path down reveals the wasteland that used to be very fertile soil with young corn plants growing in it.

The Day After the Flood

Floods do a lot of damage and the full extent of it doesn’t show up until after the water recedes. With that in mind, I went out and took some videos of the damage in the Yucatan Valley and near Houston, MN. Between building a new computer and family visiting, I didn’t get a chance to post what I’d shot.

Here it is at last:

After the Flood

Notice the Ace Communications trucks clustered at the Yucatan town hall. Amazing as it seems, we never lost the Internet during the flood. Others were not so lucky and also had their phone lines out. I used transitions to mark where we traveled on different roads. Okay, it was an excuse to use transitions, I confess.

In order to stitch things together and remove the sound, I ended up having to buy software for the task, Corel VideoStudio Pro. This is my first attempt with it and also using YouTube to host. One of these days I’ll get something that can record better than 480P, but not anytime soon.

Better Pictures of the 2013 Yucatan Flood

All photos are courtesy of Randy Roland, neighbor and friend. Most of the following pictures were taken around 10:00 AM and show some differences from the 5:00 AM ones that I took.

Once again we start close to home at the intersection where the old Yucatan Supper Club once operated. Water has never stood in the area shown despite prior floods and heavy rains.

Creamery Drive was still under five hours after first light. The new bridge held up well but the water simply went over the road in front and behind. It shows man’s limitations in dealing with the weather in a rather pointed fashion.

The Yucatan Valley Flood of 2000

Digging through my digital photographs, I did not find anything from the first flood that I photographed here in Yucatan. However, I did find copies of a friend’s pictures from that time. June 1, 2000 was the day I first experienced flooding up close and it all began when my late mother noticed water in the field where it shouldn’t be. I went outside to get a better look and realized that the creek (South Branch of the Root River) had gone over its banks.

Before long County 14 was under and later we heard from my father that he couldn’t get through from the south because the bridge was closed. Later that evening after things were open again, we took a drive along 14 and State 76 to see the flooding. It was beautiful and intimidating at the same time to see the valley filled with water. I felt like I’d glimpsed what it was like in Yucatan when the glaciers melted at the end of the last ice age.

One Day Later

The flooding has subsided in Yucatan valley leaving mud and debris in the fields. Unfortunately, two waves of storms may hit the area between now and Tuesday morning. So far they have dumped significant amounts of rain in Iowa, but the NWS is warning things could get as bad as 2007 by tomorrow. So I've got the radar on autoupdate and watching the first wave of rain approaching. Thankfully it is fading in intensity for round one.

However it is not like we can afford any more rain. Mudslides worry me even more than flooding in Houston County ever since what happened in Brownsville six years ago. Right now I'm debating getting some more stores in before tonight's storms. If weather and transportation permit, I'll get some photos of the aftermath..

Oh and to the people searching for Lanesboro flood pictures getting routed to my Yucatan posts and the old 2008 photos: Sorry I don't have any from 2013, Google isn't the best for finding what you want these days. Try DuckDuckGo or Bing for better search results.

Videos of the Yucatan Valley Flooding

I took a few videos with my trusty old Canon PowerShot S1 IS to give an idea what it is to see flood waters up close and personal. Unfortunately the wind picked up and you can’t quite get the full audio experience. Rushing waters are loud and something you don’t forget once you’ve experienced them. One thing that can’t be conveyed is the awful smell of flood waters. That too is unique.

This was taken at a flooded over county road and gives a good idea of the strong currents of flood waters. At the end you can hear a tree or trees falling from it.

The second video is from the intersection of County 4 and State Highway 76. When we passed this coming home it was closed. So was Highway 16 out of Houston and 43, leaving 44 the only main route open in the county -- and it is under construction!

More Flood Pictures

My neighbor Randy, my dad, and I went out to get another look at the flooding at Noon. Much to our relief the waters were going down in Yucatan valley from earlier in the day. They had gotten higher when Randy went out mid-morning, so there was cause for worry.

Going up the road past the local Girl Scouts camp revealed that a lot of water had crossed over that road leaving debris behind. My father moved the smaller chunks out of the road after we stopped.

The South Branch of the Root River jumped its banks in many places wreaking havoc on fields and roads. The water in the photos above covers a field. Notice the trees, dead and alive, swept into the water to be left behind.

Yucatan Is Flooding

There isn’t going to be a lot of text for this, I took these pictures shortly after 5:00 AM. Large amounts of rain has produced flooding and I need to go check on things again soon. Houston County in Minnesota is not a safe place to travel right now and people need to stay at home or seek higher ground if needed.

UPDATED 6:30 PM

I’m copying this from the National Weather Service storm report because links move around when they update. Suffice it to say that things are not good:

PRELIMINARY LOCAL STORM REPORT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE LA CROSSE WI
407 PM CDT SUN JUN 23 2013

..TIME...   ...EVENT...      ...CITY LOCATION...     ...LAT.LON...
..DATE...   ....MAG....      ..COUNTY LOCATION..ST.. ...SOURCE....
            ..REMARKS..

0405 PM     FLASH FLOOD      HOUSTON                 43.76N 91.57W
06/23/2013                   HOUSTON            MN   EMERGENCY MNGR

            STATE HIGHWAY 16 CLOSED 2 MILES EAST OF HOUSTON. STATE
            HIGHWAY 76 CLOSED BETWEEN CALEDONIA AND HOUSTON.
            PRELIMINARY ESTIMATE IS 2 MILLION DOLLARS IN DAMAGE.
            STATE OF EMERGENCY DECLARED FOR COUNTY. 20 TOWNSHIP ROADS
            CLOSED. WIDESPREAD COUNTY ROADS CLOSED.

Riceford Creek is over its banks, this is Creamery Drive at the intersection with County 4.

Standing water is merging with the flooding near the intersection. Further North, the junction of Riceford Creek and the South Branch of the Root River is rising rapidly. Both are out of their banks. There is at least one mudslide near there.

Hurricane Sandy

There are so many rumors flying around that it will probably be days before it is all sorted out, but Sandy has done a number on Lower Manhattan and parts of New Jersey. Reports of people trapped in a subway station haven’t been verified and a false rumor about the Stock Exchange being flooded out has been debunked.

I’m keeping up through Yahoo’s live blog, which is constantly updating. Blizzard conditions in West Virginia have been reported, showing just what a monster the storm has turned out to be. 4.8 million people without power in 15 states and Washington, D.C. was reported by Weather Underground, but I have to raise an eyebrow at the number of states – it could be possible though.

A hospital has been reported on fire and another one’s backup generator failed. Tisch Hospital, I believe. Water is rising still and making rescues difficult, if not impossible, in areas.

I’ll be praying more for the people in the path of Sandy. What a mess.

UPDATED 10-30

The morning has brought more news and it looks like at least 15 people died in the storm. Bridges in NYC are open for the most part and people are assessing the damage. As bad as this was, it could have been far worse. Right now it sounds like most of Long Island is without power and cell phone service is down in Manhattan. Communications with relatives are going to be difficult for people.

What worries me is that we haven’t seen the true flooding yet in the states affected. The coastal surge did a lot of damage, but all the rain dropped into rivers, creeks, and streams will cause flooding outside the coast communities in time. Having seen what large amounts of localized rainfall can do this concerns me greatly. Three towns in New Jersey are underwater after a possible levy break and that is an example of how this storm will continue to do damage.

Of course, Mayor Cuomo is already using the storm for political purposes to push for new building codes due to AGW, what a shocker. Not even 24 hours have gone by since the storm hit.

It looks like Halloween is pretty much done for the kids of the Northeast and possibly into parts of the Midwest. Between widespread power outages, snow storms, flooding, and assorted damage there is no point in even trying.

You know, it has been a strange month in my life and I expected it to be. I did not expect other people to get hammered this hard though. While I’m used to hardship, most people in the U.S.A. are not so this is going to be extremely difficult for those affected by Sandy. Prayers and aid for them are needed right now

Paul Ryan will be in La Crosse, WI at the GOP campaign HQ on Copeland Avenue to pick up donated supplies for the relief effort. 1:15 PM is the time I’ve been given, so if by chance anyone in the area reads this before, bring emergency supplies there if you can. That’s assuming anyone reads this in the first place!

Five Years Ago: The Rushford Flood

It is hard to believe that it has been so long since the August 18, 2007 flood that filled Rushford and the accompanying rains that heavily damaged much of Houston County. I just ate at The Creamery in Rushford and was explaining to a younger couple that the restaurant had been filled with four feet of water. Much of life has returned to normal in that small town, thankfully.

As part of my renovating the blog, I have been going back and properly tagging posts. This week happened to be the one assigned to that, so I have been looking at those posts and reliving what happened. I’ll let my words and photos from back then tell the story:

• The Flood Disaster of 2007
• A Wider Disaster
• A Town Drowned
• A Town Drowned Part Two
• A Town Drowned Part Three
• A Town Drowned – Photos, Part 1
• A Town Drowned – Photos, Part 2
• A Town Under Threat
• A Town Spared
• Hokah Hammered

Little did I know that less than a year later there would be more flooding locally and across the border in Wisconsin. Soldiers Grove took the hit during that one, but it was surreal to see such damage again is so short a time. There is nothing quite like the feeling of helplessness when faced with a natural disaster.

I really hope I never feel it again.

Large and Small

Been an interesting couple of days in the news, so more links that caught my eye:

It has often surprised me how I find stories being reported in the UK on events in the USA that aren't getting a lot of attention, ones that should be.  Take designer children for instance.  I had no clue this was actually being done, now I find the specter of eugenics rearing its ugly head again reported in a foreign newspaper.  The narcisissm and selfishness of people is astounding, allowing immoral acts like this to be profitable.  Simply wrong and not good for our culture.

I refuse to "tweet." For those unfamiliar with the term, it is posting short little snippets on Twitter.  If Twitter (actually all texting) isn't a sign of the dumbing down of the West, I don't know what is.  Now it is being compromised, just like MySpace and Facebook have, with worm attacks. While not as severe, it shows the inherent weakness of social networking sites to data theft.  I'm on Facebook and never warmed to it due to the triviality of the atmosphere, so my checking in is getting more infrequent. Frankly, it is a stultifyingly boring time waster.

Two years ago, Rushford, MN flooded and amongst the losses was the Tenborg Community Center.  It was a great place to hold political conventions and meetings, located at a reasonable distance for people from Fillmore, Houston, and Winona counties.  I grew fond of the place and was saddened by it becoming a total loss, when I'd hoped it would be rebuilt or at least replace by a new one.  Now it looks very much like the financial disaster of our time is making it unlikely, unless help from private enterprise enters the picture. That's too bad, as Rushford is a good location.

Things could be worse. At least I don't have a former neighbor trying to blow me up with a mail bomb.  Even small towns have weird things like this happening these days, so I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised by Houston, MN getting its share.  Fortunately, no one was harmed, but still...

Lanesboro Flooding

Some pictures of flooding in Lanesboro from Doug Baker.

Flooding, Redux

Once again our county is a disaster area, though not as bad as last August. The rains came more steadily and widespread, with already saturated soil refusing to absorb the 5 to 10" of water pouring from the sky. The South Fork of the Root River runs behind our property and we spent Sunday watching it rise slowly until it finally crested its banks over night. Water had pooled up in the adjacent field giving the illusion of flooding, but it took until today to become reality.

August was not that long ago and earlier this year the water had threatened briefly, so I'm well tired of the flooding. Eight years ago, we had the flood of the century, or so we thought. That appeared to be a once in a lifetime flood in the valley, but here we are -- again. Fortunately, the damage has not been as severe as last year in the immediate area. Over in Wisconsin, it is looking worse as Gays Mill, Viola, and Soldiers Grove are facing record flooding.

I'm counting my blessings and hoping the forecast rains this week turn out to be light, or we'll be seeing mudslides again. Some more pictures from our neck of the woods follow:

Hokah Hammered

Going East from Houston, I could see that the Root River had escaped its banks and then some. Looking like a giant had spilled a glass of chocolate milk, the muddied water had completely swamped fields and farms in the river valley. Traveling HWY 16 gave an idea of just how damaging all the rainfall had been. While there were areas that had been flooded over, apparently briefly, the bulk of the damage was from mudslides. The shoulder was in terrible shape, eroded soils had undermined the guard rails and many a post were dangling, suspended in mid-air. Entire hillsides had collapsed onto the highway and I can see why it took an entire day to open it again.



Approaching Hokah, I knew what to expect, floods are almost a way of life there. We even had an ice jam cause one during the winter a year and a half ago. So I've been mystified why people keep building businesses in the low end of town, even the best levees can't prevent everything. What was a surprise was seeing back yards missing from houses on the high end of Hokah. I looked up a street to see a garage in the street, then looked up to see the house above it partially collapsed. Not good.










The local Kwik Trip always floods when the Root River floods, so I wasn't surprised to see the used car lot next to it flooded. What I didn't expect was to see one car floating and others stuck partially in the overflooded plain next to it. I used the picture of the car in a previous post, but I'll use it again because it captures the mood of all this destruction well.











My dad pulled into the Kwik Trip, I didn't say anything because I'd told him the power was out in Hokah before we left. He was surprised to find it closed and we headed up to the downtown of the small village. There the Post Office was open and so was the small cafe, they had a generator going. We stopped in and had breakfast and ruminated on what we'd seen.




One of the things I always liked about Hokah was the wooden footbridge they had near the fire department. As you can see by the photo, it is no more.




We left Hokah and went home, Dad counted 16 major mudslides on the way back. Once home, the forecasts called for more rain, heavy rain.

A Town Spared

With the mandatory evacuation ordered in Houston and more rain coming, it was a long night. The last thing I wanted to see was the town flooded out and given that Ace Telephone is headquartered there, phone service across two counties could be affected. As it was, the Internet was already out and they are the main provider in the area. Being thoroughly modern, I get most of my information off of the Internet these days and the National Weather Service serves as my home page. With no net, there was no way to watch the radar returns on demand.

No matter, I'll watch the Weather Channel, they must be covering things here. Nothing but Hurricane Dean with a few mentions of flooding in Minnesota. It was clear that the old media wasn't keeping up due to their dwelling on the flashy prospects of hurricane damage. Information from local sources was haphazard due to the amount of damage done throughout the area and in La Crosse, Wisconsin. Then there was the Sunday effect, things slow down around here on Sundays, it isn't a big city market.

So information was limited. Mainly, it was text scrolling at the bottom of the screen that gave any idea of what was going on, it seemed as if every road and highway was damaged or closed. There were two deaths in Houston County now, one around Mound Prairie, the other by Spring Grove. Phone calls to and from friends revealed water standing high South of Caledonia and massive road damage North of Houston. I heard about Church members cut off by their driveway simply ceasing to exist.

It was a long night and the next morning at least brought back the Internet. The Root River had come within half a foot of topping the levee at Houston, but the levee held and the water was going down. Friends in Hokah weren't reachable until they called later in the day, they were cut off from every direction and had a beach where their lawn used to be.

My father and I decided to head out and see if anything could be done to help in Houston and promptly ran into a traffic jam of people trying to return home. A humvee with Army National Guard troops was blocking the way into town and questioning everyone returning. Realizing we wouldn't be allowed in, we instead decided to take HWY 16 to Hokah and find out how bad travel was going to be.

A Town Under Threat

It isn't often you get stopped in traffic by a helicopter landing in front of you, but that was the strange situation we found ourselves in Sunday afternoon. With water on the way from Rushford, I'd prodded the rest into going back home before roads closed. Sure enough, the flashers on one of Houston County's newest patrol cars could be seen just entering the outskirts of town. As we slowed to a halt, I heard the helicopter and our family friend said "Look, a news helicopter." I let him know that it was a military helicopter, a UH-60 Blackhawk to be precise and that this meant trouble.

The Blackhawk circled briefly and then went behind us, only to return directly overhead. The van rocked in the downwash of the main rotors and I hurriedly got my camera out.

The helicopter ever so slowly slid down to a landing behind the sheriff's car and we got out of the van for a better look.


I only saw Army personnel get off the UH-60 and I suspected that they had been surveying the levee, or possibly performing search and rescue. It was some time before they took off again and they flew over the levee toward Rushford.



Traffic slowly picked up and we headed home, a sense of urgency and gloom had become the order of the day. I turned on the TV and saw that a mandatory evacuation of Houston had been ordered.

Continued...

A Town Drowned - Photos, Part 2

All Photos by Randy Roland

A Town Drowned - Photos, Part 1

All photos by Randy Roland

This fawn panicked and ran into the water just after the picture was taken. It was swept downstream, most likely to its death.

Continued...