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.