Thousands of residents in Minnehaha, Lincoln and Union counties alone have been affected by the flash floods in the tri-state area, displacing some residents and inconveniencing others with water damage, destroying valuables and stopping travel.
The Argus Leader has spent the last several days since flooding starting, trying to capture their trials and tribulations after the area saw record rainfall and river levels during the last five days.
Here are a few perspectives from flood victims throughout some of the hardest areas across Lincoln, Minnehaha and Union counties.
Canton residents displaced
One of those affected is Cheyenne Lair, a Canton resident who has lived in her basement apartment near the Lincoln County Courthouse since November. She spoke with the Argus Leader on Saturday morning.
Lair said the flooding began in her area when she woke up at 4 a.m. Friday to go to work at Adams Thermal Systems Inc. She could see and hear out her basement window, which is a little more than a foot above the sidewalk outside, the sights and sounds of rushing water and people splashing through puddles.
Everything was OK until about 10 p.m. Friday when it started coming into the building’s utility and laundry room, and the vacant unit next to Lair’s, she said. Then, the floor in the hallway began to flood.
Canton residents lambaste mayor, commissioner for lack of emergency flooding response plan
Lair called her landlord to tell her about the issue, then started putting her belongings as high up as she could in her unit. Lair said she slept in her car Friday night into Saturday morning while her fiance slept in his own car, too, waking up each hour to check on the sump pump to get water out of the basement.
“Neither of us got much sleep last night,” Lair told the Argus Leader on Saturday morning.
By 8:48 a.m. Saturday, Lair had received a text from her landlord stating that she and her neighbors would have eight days to get out of their units, since the sustained flood damage would make the basement units uninhabitable for the foreseeable future, and that they aren’t expecting assistance from a water remediation company for several days due to the demand.
Power remained on in the building, but the gas was shut off, and Lair said she’s not sure when it will be restored or when the landlord will be able to relight the hot water heaters. The landlord also told Lair that repair to the floors and walls will likely take several months, she said.
The landlord offered basement tenants to move to units higher up in the building, but not to cover hotel stays for them, Lair said.
Since getting this news, Lair has called several landlords in the area to check for availability to move. She said she and her fiance plan to crash with a friend of hers for the time being. Right now, they have their cat, a spare change of clothes and some personal items, but are waiting for the water to recede enough to go back into their unit and pack up the rest of their items to put into a storage unit. She plans to file a claim with her renter’s insurance.
I'm "depressed. Stressed," Lair said. "I'm going through a worker's compensation issue at work with my shoulder, and now I have to up and move within eight days."
Canton resident starts new rubble site
When Canton resident Joseph Kumlien found out that the roads to the City of Canton rubble site were flooded with water, he offered to bring his semi truck and side dump into town to provide a spot for people to drop off their ruined furniture. He parked the side dump outside Canton Middle and High School and posted about it on the Pay it Forward Canton Facebook page Friday morning.
Kumlien said the Canton community came together to make the dump site possible.
Last flood of this magnitude was in 2019, but more heavy rain is on the way, NWS predicts
“It was impressive,” Kumlien said. “I don’t have the words to describe it.”
The city of Canton received permission from Superintendent Russell Townsend to use the parking lot as a rubble site until Wednesday, according to Public Works Commissioner Paul Garbers. The city posted on Facebook Friday evening encouraging citizens to use the site.
On Monday morning, Chris Krogmann, Canton Public Works Director, told the Argus Leader that he estimated the rubble pile had grown 5x larger from when he had last seen it on Sunday night.
Kumlien said he expected that Canton residents would be making trips to the rubble site until the last possible moment.
North Sioux City residents lose 'forever home'
Morgan Speichinger has lived in her house on Penrose Drive off of Northshore Drive at McCook Lake in North Sioux City since 2019, and she thought it would be the forever home she, her husband, their 3-year-old, 1-year-old, and two dogs would share for years to come.
But the Speichingers had no choice but to leave their forever home behind Sunday evening when water levels rose in their neighborhood, Speichinger told the Argus Leader on Monday morning.
Speichinger listened to Gov. Kristi Noem’s press conference on Facebook at 2:30 p.m. Sunday in North Sioux City, where Noem said “things are going to look worse before they get better,” explaining that water levels upstream broke records and are “coming our direction.”
Homes and roads in McCook Lake area ravaged by flooding
“These are serious flood levels. Everyone needs to take the situation seriously, and I hope you’ll communicate with your neighbors and your family members to be prepared,” Noem said, calling for a temporary evacuation of the Dakota Dunes area and mentioning local levee adjustments.
When asked if the water could cross the interstate and go into McCook Lake, Noem said there’s potential for that, and later said people should protect their personal property on McCook Lake because “we do anticipate that they will take in water; that’s what we’re preparing for.”
The nearest option for residents near McCook Lake to find sandbags was in Elk Point, more than a dozen miles from where Speichinger lives, officials said during the Sunday press conference.
But since Speichinger’s neighborhood, which is more than 5 miles north of Dakota Dunes, wasn’t specifically mentioned in the press conference beyond just a voluntary evacuation for the “Dakota Dunes area,” Speichinger said she and her family didn’t expect water to hit their home.
So, by early Sunday afternoon, the Speichingers mostly just expected groundwater seepage into their basement, and they shopped for drain plugs and got a tank full of gas just in case.
When Speichinger’s husband returned from getting gas, he told her that the water was “up the interstate,” so they walked down the street and noticed the water was “coming really fast,” she said.
They stopped to talk to neighbors along the way and decided “we should all evacuate, because there’s no police officers, no warnings, no text messages coming out saying that the water is creeping into our neighborhood,” Speichinger said.
By 6:55 p.m., the Speichingers started running to get their cars packed with their belongings. Speichinger packed three outfits each for herself, her husband and two children and ran. Speichinger’s last Ring doorbell notification shows the family driving away at 7:28 p.m.
They took back roads to Jefferson, then took Interstate to Vermillion, where they’re staying in a camper at Speichinger’s parents’ home.
Since leaving McCook Lake, Speichinger said she’s heard from neighbors who got out safe, but whose houses have been washed away; others who saw the water get neck-high in their basement; and others who weren’t home and didn’t have anything packed before it started to flood.
“We didn’t have any expectation that it was going to hit our houses,” Speichinger said.
Speichinger said she and some of her neighbors were told within the last five years that their homes would be “taken off the floodplain,” meaning they would no longer need flood insurance. She hopes that FEMA can provide some relief and help her family get back on their feet.
“This is where we were going to raise our kids, and we lost it,” Speichinger said. “I don’t think that much is going to be salvageable. We won’t be able to remediate until after they fix the roads. Our house is going to be destroyed by then. It’s going to be awful.
“It’s been a rough 24 hours,” she added.
Speichinger said she commends her neighbors who’ve been supportive of each other, checked to make sure each other were safe and rescued one another.
Canton business 'out of commission'
On Thursday night, water rose halfway up the wall in the basement of the Canton Dental Clinic and Dental Implant Group building. They hoped that would be the end of the flooding, but Friday night, water filled the entire basement, said Chad Lewison, founder of the Dental Implant Group.
The building is out of commission, according to Lewison. The company's lost its heating and air conditioning systems, internet, fire systems and extra supplies.
Lewison said the water was so high that he couldn’t get down to the basement to disconnect the power until Saturday.
Residents rush to put sandbags out as Canton sees first major flood in 10 years
Cleanup started Sunday. Almost all staff from both the Dental Clinic and Implant Group showed up to help, said Canton Dental Clinic Office Manager Gwen Baron Scott. Over their lunch break on Monday, staff sat in lawn chairs in front of the building, covered in mud and wearing athletic shorts and rubber boots.
The building's electricity was turned back on Monday, and Lewison hoped to have everything scrubbed down by Tuesday so that plumbers and electricians could start repairs.
“It’s hard to feel too sorry for yourself when everybody else is in the same boat,” Lewison said.
Huset's Speedway campers needed rescuing
Andrea Cap, from York, Pennsylvania, flew to South Dakota on Thursday to surprise her boyfriend Scott Bogucki, a Sprintcar driver originally from Australia who was competing at Huset’s Speedway for several days.
Cap and Bogucki stayed overnight from Thursday to Friday in a small camper that Bogucki uses to pull his race trailer. When Cap woke up at about 6:30 a.m. Friday, she looked outside and then told Bogucki, “We have a problem.”
Emergency crews rescue campers out near Huset's Speedway after overnight flooding
Some of the campers along the nearby Split Rock Creek were already underwater, Cap said. She spoke with the Argus Leader on Monday afternoon.
Cap, Bogucki and their friends in their mobile home next door at the speedway thought that “the likelihood of us getting stuck and then swept away was high,” Cap said. “At the time, we thought, well, the best thing that we can do is stay where we’re at. We were completely dry.”
Conditions soon changed later in the morning as the muddy area they thought they couldn’t make it through quickly surrounded them.
Soon, security came by and told them the fire department would rescue them on a small raft, so they quickly packed their bags to get out while others waded through the water.
Bogucki connected with local farmers Joel and Jen Zweep, who used their John Deere tractor to help pull campers and RVs out of the flooded area. Cap said she was thankful to the Zweeps for their help saving people’s homes and livelihoods.
“It was definitely an adventure,” Cap said. “We can breathe easy now… It was definitely a wild 24 hours.”
Canton homes flooded
On Monday, Canton resident Erin Ovre dragged her refrigerator out of her house and onto the sidewalk. Although she was able to bring most of her family's personal belongings to an upper level in time, their fridge and heater were destroyed during the flood in Canton.
Ovre's basement filled with 6 inches of water on both Thursday and Friday night. Her family built two walls and put plastic over the basement doors to help stop the flooding.
"It was pretty crazy," she told the Argus Leader on Monday afternoon. "The days have just kind of blurred together."
Ovre said it was awesome to see kids of all ages running around and distributing sand bags in her neighborhood Thursday night.
On Thursday evening, Tri-State Ready Mix offered up materials for sand bags and space to fill them at its Canton location. The Canton High School girls and boys wrestling teams volunteered to help, said Phil Ranschau, Tri-State Ready Mix manager.
"If it wasn't for the volunteers, nothing would have gotten done," Ranschau said. "They were amazing."
If you live in Minnehaha, Lincoln or Union County and are affected by the flooding, we want to share your story. Please email Kathryn Kovalenko at KKovalenko@gannett.com or Morgan Matzen at MMatzen@argusleader.com.
This article originally appeared on Sioux Falls Argus Leader: 'Not much sleep:' Residents share stories of flooding impact
Most Popular
Comments / 0