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Gov. Tim Walz and other officials surveyed storm damage in Beltrami County Tuesday morning, after weekend 

 and wreaked havoc in Bemidji and neighboring communities, downing trees and leaving thousands without power.

Walz said homeowners and the counties will be taking on significant costs with the recovery work. But he praised the Minnesota Legislature for having established a disaster assistance contingency account that will help with some of the recovery, especially if federal assistance is unavailable or insufficient. 

“Once a local disaster declaration, like you saw in Beltrami in Bemidji, is declared… we can go to the state,” he said. “And we can make determinations where we're able to reimburse 75 percent of the cost of the public infrastructure.”

Thousands still without power

Walz said the disaster assistance contingency account does not cover homes. But he said his administration is researching whether it can be used for residential properties if, for example, downed trees create a public safety issue by blocking fire trucks.

GOP Rep. Bidal Duran echoed the need for additional assistance. He cited Beltrami County’s high poverty rate and limited tax base for funding recovery efforts and said he appreciated Gov. Walz’s presence. 

“We need the help as much as possible,” he said. “So I'm going to work with, I'm going to work with Beltrami County, the city of Bemidji and the governor's office to help try to bring all the resources that we can up into our area.”

The tour included a stop in a neighborhood on the east side of Lake Bemidji where emergency managers say storm winds reached about 130 mph — equal to a Category 3 hurricane. Beltrami County declared a state of emergency this weekend. On Monday, a county board extended it by 30 days.

While speaking to the media against the backdrop of a home ravaged by the storm, Walz was interrupted. Timothy Poppert was wondering what all the people were doing on his mother’s lawn.

“Sorry, who are you guys?” he asked. 

After some reassurance, Poppert said he was glad to have officials surveying the area.

“Beltrami County has got some trouble with poverty, and there’s a lot of folks who can’t afford to have a crew come in and help clean things up,” he said. “So it is important to get help from politicians, from the government, that sort of thing.”

And his family is among those who are reeling from the cleanup. 

Poppert said he was at his home in New Mexico when he saw his mother’s Facebook post documenting what storms did to their property.

“I was just so shocked, because, I mean, you can now see a bunch of blue sky when you look this way, but before you couldn’t see through. It was all trees. It was just, you know, all forest,” he said. 

He said the picture compelled him to come up and help out. “I was like, ‘That’s gonna be a lot of work,’” he said.

Lois Pfeffer, Poppert’s mother, was out of town when the storm hit. She says when she returned home, she didn’t recognize her own street.

“I just started crying. I was expecting one tree to have lost its top. I was not expecting to have lost just about every tree. And so that was just heart rending,” she said. 

But she’s also feeling lucky that when a tree fell on her garage, no one was injured. 

Pfeffer said she’s been in talks with her insurance but is unsure of how to navigate the next steps. Meanwhile, her son said he'll stay in Bemidji until his mother no longer needs his help. 

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State and local officials surveyed damage from weekend storms that lashed Bemidji and neighboring communities.

Walz and other officials tour storm damage in Beltrami County

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