Iowa Great Lake’s officials begin brainstorming how to relieve flooded lakes

SIOUX CITY, Iowa (KCAU)– Iowa’s great lakes are overflowing and many lakefront homeowners are dealing with water-damaged basements or worse. county officials say plans to help residents and prevent more flooding is in the works.

Rich Arnorfer and his wife have owned lakefront property for roughly 4 years, and have never seen water rise so fast.

“We’ve got water in just a crawlspace, which there’s nothing down there, just an access area for electrical and and water, but everything’s above in the ceiling. Really no damage other than dehumidifier and a fan that we had down there that we didn’t get up quick enough when the water started raising,” said Arnorfer.

On Saturday, the Dickinson County Board of Supervisors with the Emergency Management Commission held a meeting to discuss Iowa’s Great Lakes water level, not expecting a large turnout.

“What we found when the meeting got started was not only did we have people from Dickinson County, business people, citizens, we also had a great number of people from Clay County, Spencer elected officials, citizens, people from Cherokee County, their emergency management. And they were honestly living in fear that Dickinson County do something to make their despair even worse,” said Jeff Thee, Dickinson County Board of Supervisors.

A new committee was formed consisting of County officials from Spencer, Dickinson, and Cherokee to find ways to relieve the lakes. Thee says the committee will not only discuss short-term solutions…

“A smaller outlet that we can control, that we can have more water going out. We can slow it down. We can stop it as we evaluate what’s going down to Spencer and through Cherokee County as well,” said Thee.

But think of plans to help prevent disasters of this scale in the future.

“It could come again next year coming five years, ten years. Let’s be ready. So all the counties, as our water moves south and out of our area into others, what can we do to help not only our citizens and businesses, but for those further down from us,” said Thee.

Arnorfer says in the future he’d like officials to inform folks about what to do after flooding.

“Just to help educate myself and everybody has done what we what you should do to, you know, to salvage what you have left to prevent the mold and everything because it’s hard to know what we really need to do as time goes on,” said Arnorfer.

On Tuesday morning, the Dickinson County Board of Supervisors will hold a meeting to discuss solutions.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to SiouxlandProud | Sioux City, IA | News, Weather, and Sports.