Story originally printed in the Winona Daily News or online at www.winonadailynews.com
Published - Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Preston hit hard by floodwaters
PRESTON, Minn. — They came before the muddy floodwaters of the Root River started to recede in this small southeast Minnesota town. They were the everyday heroes and good neighbors that earned the state its Minnesota-nice reputation.
Local firefighters sloshed through Main Street, assisting residents, pumping water from their basements and washing off the sidewalk mud.
Sweet Stop and Sandwich Shop owner Joanne Szuch and her sister Ruth McGarvey took a break from mucking out their basements to pass out sandwiches, chips and pop to fellow neighbors in galoshes.
Mark and Nancy Berry’s neighbors across the street live in the Twin Cities, so they called them and hooked up a sump pump to drain their basement while doing their own.
 Ruth McGarvey wades through water Monday in the basement of her Preston home on Main Street. Besides the television floating face-down to the right of McGarvey, she also lost a water heater, furnace, deep freeze, washer, dryer and exercise equipment. Her husband, Mike, is in Iraq with the Army Corps of Engineers and is on a flight home to Preston today, returning a month earlier than scheduled, to help clean up their home. (Photo by Melissa Carlo/Winona Daily News) |
“It’s a small town,” Nancy Berry said.
The community of about 1,300 was already friendly, residents say, but the flooding of the Root River on Sunday evening and early Monday banded the city closer.
The rise of the Root River sunk most of Fillmore County in the early hours of Monday. The towns Mabel, Canton, Harmony, Spring Valley, Granger, Lanesboro and Preston all have residents with water in basements, said Fillmore County coordinator Karen Brown. No injuries, accidents or deaths were reported.
Preston took the brunt of most of the damage, with 75 damaged homes and 12 flooded businesses, including Al Larson & Sons Plumbing and Heating, KFIL Radio, NAPA Auto Parts, Root River Hardwoods, a dental office and mental health facility.
The main road in town, County Road 17 was closed most of the day. Gravel roads and culverts in and around the city washed out. Pastures and fields flooded throughout the county.
The wastewater system was partially back online in Preston on Monday, and the water was deemed safe to drink, but Brown warned residents with private wells should have them tested.
Jenni Gruetzman, a Minnesota Department of Natural Resources field hydrologist, measured the Root River on Monday at 13.7 feet. It was 2.9 feet last week, she said. The river was moving at a velocity of between nine and 15 feet per second compared with last week’s five feet per second.
Fillmore County officials will be determining damage estimates within the next couple days, Brown said. The city of Preston has declared the flood a disaster and Brown suspected Lanesboro city officials will soon declare it, too.
Brown was unsure if the city would meet the $5 million to $6 million threshold for a state-declared disaster.
Volunteers from the Salvation Army and Red Cross came to town, Brown said, and some displaced residents stayed Sunday night at the Country Trails Inn and Suite.
Shannon and Dan Grabau stayed at his mother’s house in Rochester, Minn., with their eight children — ages ranging from 13 to 1-year-old twins.
The Grabau family had just moved into their Franklin and Main street home three months ago, Grabau said.
Groundwater seeped into their basement around 8:30 p.m. Sunday. Once it started, the water poured in from all the walls, Grabau said.
About six feet of water remained in their basement Monday afternoon, three steps from their main floor.
The neighbors up the street, Derek and Michelle Parkhurst, were constantly pushing water down their basement drain Monday.
But the Parkhursts, like so many other residents in Preston, weren’t thinking about the floodwaters of Sunday. They kept on talking about the floodwaters that hit another Fillmore County town, Rushford, 10 months ago. This was nothing like what happened there, they said.
“It could have been worse,” the Parkhursts kept repeating.
Road Updates
Fillmore County Rd. 17 reopened Monday evening
A historic bridge in Forestville, Minn., on Fillmore County Road 118 is impassable and awaiting state inspections
Fillmore County Road 13 from Choice to Houston is closed
Fillmore County Road 8, west of Fillmore, and Fillmore County Road 30, east of Granger, Minn., are under water
The bridge by the Upper Iowa River and Granger, Minn., is closed.
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