AUGUST 28, 2024:
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — A southern Minnesota dam and nearby bridge that almost collapsed last month after a bout of heavy rain and prompted a federal emergency declaration will be torn down, officials said Tuesday (Aug. 27, 2024).
The Blue Earth County Board of Commissioners voted to remove the Rapidan Dam near the city of Mankato, about 80 miles (130 kilometers) south of Minneapolis, and replace the County Road 9 Bridge, both of which were at risk of crumbling. The officials jumpstarted what will likely be a yearslong rebuilding process as the structural integrity of the dam and bridge remain uncertain.
The Blue Earth River’s water levels rose dramatically in late June and early July after heavy rain pummeled the Midwest for days. While the structures held up in the end, floodwaters forged a new river channel around the dam and cut deeply into a steep riverbank, toppling utility poles, wrecking a substation, swallowing a home and forcing the removal of a beloved store.
With the specter of a future collapse still on the minds of a wary local community, officials said they had to act in the name of public safety. But they are concerned about the bridge closure’s impact on local farmers, one of the rural area’s primary economic drivers.
“We know that this is a rural community and they use (the bridge) for getting farm to market, and we know the fall harvest is coming up and it’s going to be inconvenient,” said Jessica Anderson, a spokesperson for Blue Earth County. “But safety has been our priority from day one. And we cannot afford to jeopardize that.”
Vance Stuehrenberg, a Blue Earth County commissioner, said farmers might have to travel upwards of 45 minutes around the bridge to reach their fields.
River waters washed away large amounts of sediment, causing instability to the bridge’s supporting piers, built atop sandstone bedrock. The timeline for rebuilding it is unclear, but Anderson said it would be a matter of “years, not months.”
It was also unclear Tuesday how much the rebuilding will cost. Studies commissioned by the county in 2021 found repairing the dam would cost $15 million and removing it would cost $82 million, but Anderson said environmental conditions have changed since then.
The next step will be securing funding to finance the repairs, which could come from a combination of state and federal sources. The county is working to develop a plan with federal agencies including the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, Anderson said.
A federal disaster declaration was approved for Blue Earth County, and local officials said the additional resources will be critical for rebuilding efforts. But those projects could be complicated by a sensitive landscape where relief efforts can sometimes exacerbate decline, officials have also warned.
Stuehrenberg is also concerned about the impact the closure could have on recreation opportunities near the dam, which is a popular area for bike riding. Minnesota Gov. and Democratic Vice Presidential nominee Tim Walz, who visited the dam in July, is among those who used to ride his bike on a nearby trail.
The Rapidan Dam is over a century old, finished in 1910. While it was built to generate electricity, it has been damaged by several rounds of flooding in recent decades. The dam hasn’t been producing power, as previous floods knocked out that small source of revenue.
There are roughly 90,000 significant dams in the U.S. At least 4,000 are in poor or unsatisfactory condition and could kill people and harm the environment if they failed, according to data from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. They need inspections, upgrades and even emergency repairs.
JUNE 25, 2024:
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Floodwaters breached levees in Iowa on Tuesday (June 25, 2024), creating dangerous conditions that prompted evacuations as the deluged Midwest faced another round of severe storms forecast for later in the day.
A vast swath of lands from eastern Nebraska and South Dakota to Iowa and Minnesota has been under siege from flooding from torrential rains since last week, while also being hit with a scorching heat wave. Up to 18 inches (46 centimeters) of rain have fallen in some areas, and some rivers rose to record levels. Hundreds of people were rescued, homes were damaged and at least two people died.
The sheriff’s office in Monona County, near the Nebraska border, said the Little Sioux River breached levees in several areas. In neighboring Woodbury County, the sheriff’s office posted drone video on Facebook showing the river overflowing the levee and flooding land in rural Smithland. No injuries were immediately reported.
Patrick Prorok, emergency management coordinator in Monona County, described waking people at about 4 a.m. in Rodney, a town of about 45 people, to recommend evacuation. Later Tuesday morning, the water hadn’t yet washed into the community.
“People up the hill are saying it is coming our way,” Prorok said.
As new areas were flooding Tuesday, some cities and towns were cleaning up after the waters receded while others downstream were piling sandbags and taking other measures to protect against the oncoming swelled currents. Some normal, unassuming tributaries ballooned into rushing rivers, damaging homes, buildings and bridges.
“Normally, this river is barely a trickle,” 71-year-old Hank Howley said as she watched the Big Sioux’s waters gush over a broken and partially sunken rail bridge in North Sioux City, South Dakota, on Monday. “Really, you could just walk across it most days.”
In a residential development along McCook Lake in North Sioux City, the devastation became clear Tuesday as floodwaters began to recede from Monday, exposing collapsed streets, utility poles and trees. Some homes had been washed off their foundations.
“Currently, there is no water, sewer, gas or electrical service in this area,” Union County Emergency Management said in a Facebook post.
President Joe Biden approved a major disaster declaration for affected counties in Iowa on Monday, a move that paves the way for federal aid to be granted.
To the south in Sioux City and Woodbury County, Iowa, officials responded to residents’ complaints that they had received little warning of the flooding and its severity. Sioux City Fire Marshal Mark Aesoph said at a news conference Tuesday that rivers crested higher than predicted.
“Even if we would have known about this two weeks ago, there was nothing we could do at this point. We cannot extend the entire length of our levee,” Sioux City Fire Marshal Mark Aesoph said. “It’s impossible.”
Water had spilled over the Big Sioux River levee, and Aesoph estimated hundreds of homes likely have some internal water damage.
Officials in Woodbury County said around a dozen bridges over the Little Sioux River had been topped by flood water, and each would need to be inspected to see if they can reopen to traffic.
Further to the east in Humboldt, Iowa, a record crest of 16.5 feet was expected Wednesday at the west fork of the Des Moines River. Amid high temperatures and humidity, nearly 68,000 sandbags have been laid, according to county emergency manager Kyle Bissell.
Bissell told reporters Tuesday that there was no water on the streets yet, but flooding had begun in some backyards and was reaching up to foundations. Humboldt is home to nearly 5,000 residents.
More severe weather was forecast to move into the region Tuesday, potentially bringing large hail, damaging winds and even a brief tornado or two in parts of western Iowa and eastern Nebraska, according to the National Weather Service. Showers and storms were also possible in parts of South Dakota and Minnesota, the agency said.
In Michigan, more than 150,000 homes and businesses were without power Tuesday morning after severe thunderstorms barreled through, less than a week after storms left thousands in the dark for days in suburban Detroit.
The weather service also predicted more than two dozen points of major flooding in southern Minnesota, eastern South Dakota and northern Iowa, and flood warnings are expected to continue into the week.
Many streams, especially with additional rainfall, may not crest until later this week as the floodwaters slowly drain down a web of rivers to the Missouri and Mississippi. The Missouri will crest at Omaha on Thursday, said Kevin Low, a weather service hydrologist.
The heavy rains were blamed in the deaths of at least two people. On Saturday, an Illinois man died while trying to drive around a barricade in Spencer, Iowa. The Little Sioux River swept his truck away, the Clay County Sheriff’s Office said. Officials recovered his body Monday. Another person died in South Dakota, Gov. Kristi Noem said without providing details.
North of Des Moines, Iowa, the lake above the Saylorville Dam was absorbing river surge and expected to largely protect the metro area from flooding, according to the Polk County Emergency Management Agency. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers projected Tuesday that water levels at Saylorville Lake will rise by more than 30 feet (9 meters) by the Fourth of July.
Outside Mankato, Minnesota, the local sheriff’s office said Monday that there was a “partial failure” of the western support structure for the Rapidan Dam on the Blue Earth River after the dam became plugged with debris. Flowing water eroded the western bank, rushed around the dam and washed out an electrical substation, causing about 600 power outages.
Eric Weller, emergency management director for the Blue Earth County sheriff, said the bank would likely erode more, but he didn’t expect the concrete dam itself to fail. The two homes downstream were evacuated.
A 2019 Associated Press investigation into dams across the country found that the Rapidan Dam was in fair condition and there likely would be loss of property if it failed. A pair of 2021 studies said repairs would cost upward of $15 million and removal more than $80 million.
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