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Story originally printed in the Winona Daily News or online at www.winonadailynews.com

Published - Sunday, February 17, 2008

Whitewater State Park’s recovery crucial to Elba

By Mark Sommerhauser / Winona Daily News

ELBA, Minn. — Mark Thoreson wants to make one thing clear: The flood didn’t put Lazy D’s Campground out of business.

The Whitewater River dumped sandbars on campsites, buried electrical plug-ins beneath rock and swept five feet of water into campground bathrooms.

Yet Thoreson — owner of Lazy D’s — said roughly two-thirds of the 120 campsites at Lazy D’s should be open by April 1; the remainder should be ready by Memorial Day.

What happens after that remains uncertain.

“We’ll be open, no doubt about that. We just don’t know what we’ll have for business,” Thoreson said.

For Thoreson and others in the Elba area to survive, they say a rebuilt, reopened Whitewater State Park is essential.

The park sustained more than $4 million in damages in the August flood and has been closed since.

The absence of tourists has delivered a double blow to Elba — already hurt when 17 homes and three businesses were flooded.

Mayor Donny Ball said the town’s three taverns are missing tourism the most.

“The businesses have really been hurt,” Ball said.

As for homeowners, Ball estimated that 10 have already rebuilt and moved back in. At least seven homes haven’t been rebuilt — and government buyouts may be the only way their owners can avoid defaulting on mortgages, Ball said.

Thoreson credits the Minnesota Investment Fund and Winona Area Volunteers for helping to rebuild Lazy D’s.

Thoreson is looking forward to April, when Whitewater State Park is scheduled to re-open.

Elba-area business owners will have to work hard to let tourists know they’re open, Thoreson said. He believes campers will get the message — hopefully sooner rather than later.

“If you have a lot of people convinced everything is closed, … that’s going to be hard on us,” Thoreson said. “It takes a little while, but you’ve got to ride it out.”