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...