National, state leaders promise flood aid

After the recent flooding that took place overnight in New Richland on Friday and Saturday, Sept. 18 and 19, Senators Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith paid a special visit to the drying town. They helped to raise funding and spoke of introducing legislation, both state and federal, to get the people of New Richland continued support and assessment of the damage after storms dumped about 9 inches of rain in less than 12 hours, causing damage to as many as 80 percent of homes in the community and forcing the evacuation of the city-operated care center, an assisted living facility where water eventually damaged walls up to about 4 feet in height. Politicians and city officials met to share information about the extent of flood damage and discuss possibilities for aid to private citizens as well as both state and federal funding to mitigate future flooding by rerouting water flow. One of the first things Klobuchar spoke about after the meeting was how impressed she is by aid and volunteer efforts extended by local citizens, including members of the NRHEG High School football team who pushed a pontoon boat through the flood water to evacuate some of the residents of the Care Center.

 

Smith and Klobuchar spent time speaking with Red Cross volunteers; Klobuchar thanked those present, including Representative Tom Sexton; Assistant Commissioner of Emergency Services for the Minnesota Department of Public Safety John Cunningham; New Richland City Administrator Tyler Lendt and all those who have helped during the flood. 

 

Said Klobuchar, “This town and the way they have come together, there are so many stories like the football team helping.” As she spoke, the NRHEG Homecoming Parade across the street had just finished up. “The Homecoming Parade going on is great; as one of the residents said, they want things to be as normal as possible, considering. Seventy to eighty percent of the homes have been hit by the historic flood, including 36 residents who had to be evacuated from the city-owned Care Center. The first thing in the short term is getting residents help, which includes the Red Cross.

 

“We also have people from all over the state here that are helping to get people what they need, not just with food, but with cleanup as well. Second is continued damage assessment which will help to access both federal and state funds. To access federal funds, you need to have amounts of at least $12 million of public infrastructure damage. When the damage isn’t done across multiple counties, it can be difficult to reach that number. The state funding can kick in at 75 percent of public infrastructure damage, which includes the long-term care facility. There is another source of federal funding which is rarely given for individual homes, but when it’s this localized, there’s a possibility of getting money for homeowners for whatever their insurance doesn’t cover.

 

“We are urging New Richland residents to allow assessments of their homes to show the more intense numbers of local damage.” She went on to discuss fixing the problem long-term. Since this happened because of the current ditch configuration, “There are experts, and plans have been made, but we need to seek immediate help federally and on the statewide level.”

 

Senator Smith was next to speak. She added, “Over and over again in Minnesota people run into trouble. There was this problem and this terrible flood and everyone came to help. Now it’s on our shoulders to make sure we’re doing what we can to help to get this community the support it needs. When I go back to Washington on Monday, my staff will be working directly with Klobuchar’s team to figure out how to further help this community recover from this disaster. The current ditches that exist here do not have the capacity to deal with this level of water.” John Cunningham said his heart went out to all those affected by the flooding and that he was working to speed up the recovery. “We will be out and looking to gather information. Please, all residents, remember to hang on to your receipts. We want this story out there–and everyone watch out for scammers.”

 

Representative Tom Sexton said, “On behalf of Rep. Finstad, I would like to say we’re going to cut through the bureaucracy. We’re going to get a bill moving through the house tonight. I’m sure the senators will jump on that, get the funding so we can start work on the ditch design that’s already present to make sure this doesn’t happen again.”

 

A question posed during the press conference regarded how state laws have been, in some ways, an obstacle to rerouting water flow. Waseca County Commissioner Doug Christopherson replied, “Along with ditches going through town, we have state statutes regarding how we deal with ditches. That’s not common across the nation, so when we’re applying for this federal  litigation money, they are not familiar with that. So, we’re using a ditch attorney to work with the federal applications. Yes, it’s more steps and more hurdles, but we’re working through that.”  Christopherson commended the senators for showing up and thanked them for their promises of help on the federal level.