Aid delays prevent flooded businesses from rebuilding

Flooded car
A van shows the depth of water outside a home in Rushford.
MPR photo/Mark Steil

Some business owners in southeastern Minnesota who saw their livelihoods washed away in last summer's floods are now facing delays of up to a year before they can get government aid to relocate and rebuild.

The counties where the businesses were located had never prepared what are called local hazard mitigation plans, which the federal government requires before it will distribute money to buy out individual properties in flood-prone areas.

Brenda and Bruce Kimble, owners of the Junction Inn in Hokah, saw a six-foot wall of water from a nearby Creek swamp the building and wash away its parking lot. The Kimbles would like to rebuild out of the flood plain, but their home county, Houston, is one of five that didn't have the hazard mitigation plans.

Officials in Houston along with Fillmore, Olmsted, Wabasha and Dodge must craft mitigation plans before property owners like the Kimbles can get the federal hazard mitigation funds. And county officials said that process could take up to a year.

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"This is a huge undertaking that takes a lot of time and effort," said Deb Teske, emergency operations director for Fillmore County. "We're trying to fast-track it."

Property owners not only must wait for the money, in most cases they can't even find out how much assistance they'll be eligible for as they make decisions about rebuilding.

"We've been waiting," said Brenda Kimble, who along with her husband is trying to decide if they want to rebuild on the same site or move elsewhere. "We still don't have a lot of answers."

Emergency officials in the county didn't have good answers for why the plans were never prepared. "I don't know why it was never done," Kurt Kuhlers, emergency management coordinator for Houston County, told the Winona Daily News.

Federal hazard mitigation funds were to be part of the dollars made available after President Bush issued federal disaster declarations for seven counties flooded in southeastern Minnesota in late August. The money can be used for both property buyouts and public works projects.

The plans outline the risks of and responses to various disasters, including fires, tornadoes, floods and earthquakes. One of the two counties that did prepare the plans, Winona, produced a 258-page document; Kristen Sailer, spokeswoman for Minnesota Homeland Security and Emergency Management, said they cost about $100,000 to compile, although much of that cost is reimbursed by the federal government.

Counties have been tasked with creating the reports since 2000, when Congress passed a federal law requiring them as a prerequisite to accessing the federal hazard mitigation funds.

Sailer said since then, 81 of 87 Minnesota counties have gained approval for their plans. Five of the six counties that didn't are those struck by the August floods.

That's not a coincidence, Sailer said, as other regions of the state have regional development commissions that provided manpower and expertise in preparing the plans. But the regional development commission in southeastern Minnesota dissolved some time ago.

"If this hazard-mitigation policy would have been in operation, you could offer the residents something greater than, 'I don't know,"' said Rodney Blank, the city administrator in Hokah.

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Information from: Winona Daily News, http://www.winonadailynews.com