Three back-to-back summer storms up disaster aid request in Crow Wing

Darla Swanson lost many of her trees.
Many trees were lost after a June storm in Brainerd. Crow Wing County is hoping for more aid money to boost recovery efforts after a string of storms this summer.
Vickie Kettlewell for MPR News file

Crow Wing County didn't have a good summer.

The tourist season opened with a hail storm that dropped baseball-sized chunks of ice on the Nisswa area. A few weeks later a major storm swept through north central Minnesota with torrential rains. Soon after, more rain.

Then on Aug. 4, 80 mph winds ripped through the area, uprooting trees and knocking out power to thousands.

Those winds even tipped over a three-ton Babe the Blue Ox statue south of Brainerd.

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This week inspectors with the state's Homeland Security and Emergency Management office toured the damage. Their estimates will determine how much money Crow Wing County will get to offset the costs of repairing roads and downed power lines.

A tree fell on a pickup of Darla and Jeff Swanson.
Darla and Jeff Swanson lost many trees on their seven-acre property to a June storm.
Vickie Kettlewell for MPR News file

"Crow Wing County wasn't hit harder than the rest of the state," said Minnesota Homeland Security Deputy Director Kevin Reed. "But it was hit more often."

A string of powerful storms swept through Minnesota this year. Floodwaters rose across the central and southern parts of the state. Two campers were killed by falling trees in the Boundary Waters and thousands of homes in Duluth lost power for days.

Gov. Mark Dayton has already approved nearly $6.5 million for disaster relief across the state. Some of that went to Crow Wing County for a storm that happened on July 11. The county estimates two more storms in July and August did an extra $700,000 in damage to public infrastructure.

Hardest hit in Crow Wing County was the Grand View Lodge on the northern shore of Gull Lake.

Lodge manager Mark Ronnei said it wasn't so much the severity of the storms, but the cumulative effect. Hail demolished the roofs of 70 structures on the lodge grounds. Then two back-to-back heavy rain events saturated the ground, making tree roots unstable right before 80 mph winds swept through.

"No pun intended," he said, "but it was the perfect storm."

Grand View lost more than 300 trees, many of them more than a century old. In total, Ronnei said his insurance claims will reach $2 million, four times more than the county hopes to get for its downed power lines.

Kevin Reed from the Homeland Security office says disaster relief figures will be finalized next month.