Waseca County surveying flood damage

[THEME MUSIC] NINA MOINI: Parts of the Minnesota River Valley are still under flood warnings after torrential rains poured over the state this weekend. In Waseca County, which is in Southern Minnesota, basements flooded. And crews are out today fixing washed-out gravel roads.

More than 6 and a half inches of rain fell from midnight Sunday to 6:00 PM in the city of Waseca. Other parts of the county had reports of more than 11 inches of rain from multiple rounds of storms, according to Waseca County Administrator Michael Johnson, who joins me now to talk about all of this and the cleanup. Thanks for your time this afternoon, Michael.

MICHAEL JOHNSON: Absolutely. Happy to be here.

NINA MOINI: Gosh, when you hear these rain totals, right, 6 inches, 11 inches, how are you experiencing these drastic rainfalls?

MICHAEL JOHNSON: In the grand scheme of things, I think we've been pretty fortunate that we've had a little bit of the break that we've had in those rain events. And I saw, with meteorologist John Zeigler just updating those precipitation totals on his Facebook page, the downtown Waseca accumulating 12 and a half inches of rain over a weekend is pretty astronomical and unique. So tend to have some lingering effects. Not only at the event itself, but when we look at some of the downstream implications and public infrastructure implications, it's kind of a mess.

NINA MOINI: Yeah, where do you start with something like that, I wonder, Michael?

MICHAEL JOHNSON: Immediately, over the weekend, the best place for us to start is in combination or concourse of our public works team and our sheriff's office, who both do a tremendous job of getting out and just figuring out, are roadways even navigable, is it safe for people to try to traverse them, and try to take the risk-averse approach, especially when you get into some of the gravel roadways that we have. But even in a relatively smaller rural county, we still have over 400 miles of roadways that we have to inspect and manage and try to ensure are safe and navigable in these type of events.

NINA MOINI: Yeah, so it sounds like definitely starting with the roadways so people can get around, the public infrastructure. I understand in the city of Waseca, though, beaches are also closed or going to be closed due to an emergency discharge of wastewater. Can you explain how all of that interacts and what you all are doing about it?

MICHAEL JOHNSON: Certainly. I'll give the caveat, first of all, that that is somewhat of the jurisdiction of the city of Waseca, which--

NINA MOINI: Oh, sure.

MICHAEL JOHNSON: --I am not. But it's something that certainly has some overlapping effect to what we do at the county level. But essentially, once you reach that critical mass of what your wastewater treatment facility can maintain, there gets to a point where you simply cannot take any more water in through that sanitary system.

So you're left really with two options, neither of them are good-- one, where you're dumping raw sewage into a public waterway, or, two, you let all of that water back up into people's homes and basements. So that's really the option that they're left with. And of course, they choose to try to preserve individual homes and property, in this case at the expense of that lake.

NINA MOINI: Sure. Thank you for explaining some of that. Everything is sort of interconnected, right? And I know mentioned the downtown Waseca, which is probably more businesses, I would assume. What have you heard about any damage to homes? I know that's kind of on the homeowner more so. But are you hearing about home damage or mostly businesses or any type of damage?

MICHAEL JOHNSON: Somewhat depends on the area or location north to south across the county, but we're hearing some of both. We are hearing about quite a bit of water still in the basement despite any proactive efforts that the city could take within the city of Waseca. At a certain point, our systems aren't quite designed to deal with 12 and a half inches in a little over a 24-hour period. So that's a lot of systematic pressure from an inflow and infiltration standpoint.

Some of our historically flooded communities, like the city of New Richland, actually fared fairly well--

NINA MOINI: Oh, good.

MICHAEL JOHNSON: --in this particular event. It's a community that has been plagued by flooding over the last decade with some of those, so to speak, hundred-year rain events happening quite a bit more frequently these days. And anytime it reaches that point of excess, there are a number of businesses and a nursing home and things that have implications.

NINA MOINI: Yeah, Michael, I just wonder, you mentioned that these types of rain events and weather events that are drastic are happening more often, at a greater rate. Do you have any plans in the works as county administrator, at a county level, to step back and assess some of the infrastructure and just how it's going to be able to hold and prioritizing where improvements might be needed just as the years tick on and we don't how much worse things could get here and there?

MICHAEL JOHNSON: Yeah, absolutely. It's a great question and something that we actively think through quite often. We're currently working with the city of New Richland in that instance and pursuing some funding through the Federal Economic Development Agency for some flood mitigation, hazard mitigation funding.

So the problem that isn't necessarily unique to the city of New Richland or a lot of smaller rural Minnesota locations is that the cost implication of a wholesale fix is pretty astronomical. So in a city of less than 2,000 individuals, when you speak in terms of solution being upwards of $7 to $10 million, those costs and price points just aren't tenable or sustainable on a small tax base, rural tax base.

NINA MOINI: Yeah, there's the issues that happen when a weather event happens. And then there's trying to plan for 10 or 50 years down the road, I would imagine. But, Michael, just one more question before I let you go here. So you have not declared an emergency declaration yet. You're still gathering facts, it looks like. Would you talk a little bit about what the next steps are here and what might happen with that declaration and then what that means?

MICHAEL JOHNSON: Yeah, absolutely. So after chatting with my board chair this morning, I do plan to take a declaration of local emergency. That would be under Chapter 12 of Minnesota Statute. That just really buys us some time, gives us a little bit more time to step back and assess what exactly is implicated in terms of public infrastructure and private damage that occurred.

Certainly, with some higher water levels right now, you don't necessarily know the extent of the damage along roadways or culverts or bridges until that water has a chance to recede somewhat. So this buys us a few days to assess. And then it is a necessary step as well to potentially pursue some state or federal reimbursement dollars under this state of emergency, as well. So I do plan to take that action, which will be Resolution 36, tomorrow morning for the Board of Commissioners to consider and take action on.

NINA MOINI: All right, Michael. Thank you very much for filling us in here on Minnesota Now, and thanks for your work.

MICHAEL JOHNSON: You're very welcome. Thank you.

NINA MOINI: Michael Johnson is the Waseca County administrator.