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...

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...

A Town Drowned Part Three

Photos by Patrick Boone

The first thing I noticed coming into Rushford was this sign, with a pile of snowmobiling signs piled against it. The field it is next to is likely ruined and the house on the outskirts of town had water up another level of bricks earlier in the morning. I was growing more somber with each flooded corn or soy field we passed between Houston and Rushford, the crops that had looked to be exceptional this year were now dying. We parked just before the bridge and walked over it, trees were going by under it along with other debris headed for Houston.




The sound of diesal engines filled the air, farmers had arrived with tractors to run pumps, feverishly trying to pump the water trapped between two levees.


People were gathered, some were tourists who were lost, others just thought it would be fun to see a disaster. The locals had a different attitude, one of shock and loss. A grim sense of humor was the only response to the situation for some of them. Also, a sense of helplessness could be felt as nature's fury is so much bigger than we are.

Only a week before, I'd been in Rushford for unhappy reasons, as we'd hit a deer with our 2005 Subaru Outback and had limped into town. The car took major damage and had to be left at the Kwik Trip parking lot to be towed later. Little did we know what would happen a week later.


This is what a doe will do to a car traveling 55 MPH.



The parking lot on Sunday.

Continued...

A Town Drowned

After getting the note from my dad, I began checking the news on TV and found out that roads all across the area were closed and that damage was widespread. A phone call from a friend in La Crescent brought news that they were only able to go to La Crosse, HWY 61 was closed by a landslide to the North and HWY 16 was closed to the South. The National Guard had arrived as well and a civil emergency had been declared by Governor Tim Pawlenty. Also, they wouldn't be able to make it down to Caledonia to help tear down the fair booth.

It is about this time during an emergency where I start to go stir crazy, frustrated with ill health and limitations of what I can do to help. So I waited until my dad returned and cursed the Net for being out locally. When he and our neighbor Randy returned, I found out just how bad things were.

Rushford was under up to ten feet of water in the downtown.

Photo by Randy Roland

People had been awakened at around 3:00 AM by water entering their basements and by town sirens going off. One woman had to wade through chest high water on her first floor, only to find her front door blocked by a pickup that had been washed against it. My dad witnessed rescuers chopping a hole in the roof of a house to get another woman out. Cars, trucks, and belongings had all been swept away in the initial torrent of water that crested over a levee in the North part of Rushford. The creek there had flooded quickly and the levee that protects the town from the Root River to the South had trapped the water in town.

Photo by Randy Roland

That's when I knew we had to get moving and get that booth torn down, before more weather hit and before more roads closed. The trip back to Caledonia showed a couple of more minor mudslides since when I'd been there and when we arrived, everyone was taking down their booths. The mood was somber and the lady in the next booth was actually from North of Rushford and didn't know the extent of the damage. I filled her in on what I'd heard and we discussed the known fatalities at the time, four people in Winona County. Everyone scattered for home, a truly grim way to end the festivities of a county fair.
Continued...

A Wider Disaster

When I saw that HWY 44 out of Caledonia was closed, I knew I was in for a long day. I briefly considered going down to Lansing, Iowa and crossing the Mississippi there, but decided that being determined is one thing and being bullheaded is another. Because of the mudslides on HWY 76, a more circuitous route through high ground appealed to me and that meant going through Spring Grove, Minnesota. From there I'd head North to home and figure out my next move.

Somewhere during all this plotting it had decided to rain again and it was a gloomy drive. About half way to Spring Grove, the rain came again and visibility became bad just outside the small Norwegian town. I pulled over by the local bank and called into Church to say nobody from Elders Quorum would make the meeting. More bad news, that things were the same across the river in Wisconsin and I wasn't the only one who couldn't make it. So I went home and reported what I'd seen to my dad, made plans to go to the fairgrounds in Caledonia to tear down the booth later, then crashed for a nap after a very long week.

The power coming back on roused me from my stupor and I came out of my room to find a note from my father:

PAT -- 0920
Went to Rushford with Randy to survey damage
Whole town is under water

Photo by Randy Roland

To be continued...