Advertisement
An Austin, Minn., couple was evacuated from the secluded rural Caledonia, Minn., campground the night of flash floods June 8 with about 60 other campers, but they returned for a few days to help clean. A group of regulars who lost their campers brought Johnson flowers.
 |
Lou Stoltz, 47, left, of Owatonna, Minn., helps her neighbor, Paul Winterland, 68, of Spring Green, Wis., as he cuts boards Thursday to rebuild the deck railing around his RV after flood waters damaged his site at the Highway 250 Campground in Lanesboro, Minn. Winterland and his wife, Sue, have stayed at the campground from spring until fall for the past four years and say they will continue to stay on the banks of the Root River. The couple, evacuated from the campground during flooding June 9, had their RV back on the site within 10 days. "We love it here," said Winterland. "I have a river at my back door and a bike path at my front door." |
“People’s kindness and generosity in a bad situation is the real story,” Johnson said.
After thousands of volunteer hours and a lot of sweat, DunRomin’ and two other local campgrounds — Camp Winnebago and Lanesboro, Minn.’s Highway 250 Campground — have reopened.
News spread quickly about severe flooding at the campgrounds, which owners and workers say brought a constant flurry of phone calls from people checking to see if they were closed for the season. Some even canceled reservations at DunRomin’.
Johnson spent the following week after the flood issuing refunds. She said many told her they’ll come back when “you’re all pretty again.”
News of the damage devastated Johnson’s business, and it couldn’t have come at a worse time, she said. High gas prices and a slow economy brought camping to a standstill last summer until it picked up again in early August. But then the flood shut down the region, and Johnson said she lost a third of her business.
Nearby nonprofit Camp Winnebago, which caters to both residential and developmentally disabled campers, had canceled camping for a only day, despite about $80,000 in damage to buildings, foot bridges and roads, said program director Valerie Wilson.
Work crews and volunteers from the local Workforce Centers and sentence-to-serve program helped the campground just recently become fully functional, save a couple of muddy patches, Wilson said.
Highway 250 Campground in Lanesboro lost six sites for the rest of the year as well as some infrastructure, said owner John Hungerholt.
Sixty of the 90 campsites were underwater, including a few campers and vehicles. Hungerholt said 85 loads of sand had to be hauled out. His campground is ready for business this weekend.
“I’m pretty much getting back to normal,” he said.
Contact Amber Dulek at amber.dulek@lee.net or 507-453-3513.
