Local News

Water gushes onto Tracy streets and into basements

TRACY -- Fifty years ago, an F-5 tornado ripped through Tracy and greatly impacted the lives of its residents. On Tuesday, the small community was hit again -- this time by the devastating effects of flooding.

In Tracy and in other parts of southwest Minnesota, between 6 and 10 inches of rain fell overnight and into the early-morning hours on Tuesday. With the ground already saturated, there is nowhere for the water to go. As a result, a disaster declaration was issued for Lyon County.

"I've never seen anything like it before," Brandon Willard said. "It's just an insane amount of water."

Willard, who lives in Tracy with his fiancee, Brittany Andree, said he drove all the way to Wabasso to go to work and found out that it was flooded there as well.

"I drove home and Highway 14 was closed," he said. "It's been a nightmare."

To make things worse, a wall in their basement collapsed.

"There was no water in the basement when we left," Willard said. "We came out here and were talking to people and then went back in the house. I went to check if there was water in the basement and the wall was down."

Willard said he contacted his landlord, Dale Johnson, who also happens to serve as Tracy fire chief.

"They showed up with the fire truck and ambulance," Willard said. "All the guys got out and checked the house to make sure everything was OK. It's a good thing it was just the retaining wall and not the actual wall that holds the house up. Dale thinks it's going to be OK. They shut off the water and gas for now, though, just to be safe."

Willard said he's grateful that the sewer isn't backing up.

"I've heard other people in town are having that problem," he said.

A city engineer also inspected the house to make sure the wall was stable enough. While they gave the couple the OK for now, they have to keep a close eye on the situation.

"They said to really pay attention to it," Willard said. "Dale said to watch it to make sure no more water comes through it and if that happens or anything else starts falling, I'm supposed to let him know right away. If he's busy or I can't get ahold of him, I was told to call 911 to be safe about it. I just can't believe how much this water impacted things."

Tina Rassmussen remembers when Marshall was flooded back in the early 1990s.

"This is even worse," she said. "It's crazy. I got a lake (in my yard) and it's not going anywhere. The last I heard, according to Keloland was that Tracy got 10-½ inches of rain."

Denny Alexander said people were having a difficult time figuring out how much rain actually fell because their rain gauges weren't big enough.

"Their rain gauges ran over after 6 inches, so people don't really know how much rain fell," he said. "I've seen a lot of water in Tracy before, but never this much."

Alexander, who has served on the Tracy Ambulance crew for 22 years, said there had been a lot of complicated issues to deal with since the sun came up.

"They're pumping water all over and we've had four basements collapse so far," Alexander said. "The fire department is tagging them out and getting people places to go and things like that. Then an engineer will check them out just to make sure. When the wall collapses -- depending on which wall and where all the utilities and stuff comes in -- you've got electrical getting ripped out, sewer ripped out, gas ripped out, so it really complicates it."

Alexander said the Veteran's Memorial Center was opened up on Tuesday morning to provide a location for displaced people to go.

"They opened it up for people to go to if they've lost their electricity or got evacuated from their house," he said. "The city has also been working with the fire department, getting the pumps, getting the barricades out and just assessing the situation."

Alexander said the flooding is not only severely affecting Tracy residents, but people in surrounding communities as well.

"It's Garvin, Currie, Balaton, Tracy, Marshall and Wabasso," Alexander said. "My brother-in-law lives in Wabasso and they had the fire department out because people's LP tanks in their backyards were floating away. And my sister-in-law has about 4 feet of water in her basement in Tracy."

Along with ambulance newcomer, Tori Schons, Alexander spent part of the day directing traffic away from the Food Pride, Casey's and former Dairy Queen area, which was one of the hardest hit spots in town.

"Everybody wants to come out and drive through it, but it makes it worse," Alexander said. "That's kind of why we're here (blocking traffic) because every time someone drives through here, it pushes water into the grocery store. If we could just get people to stay home, it would help."

Kathy Zvork said a lot of people were talking about the bread truck that misjudged the driveway to get into the Food Pride parking lot.

"There was a Sara Lee bread truck that tried to pull into the parking lot and kind of got stuck or something," she said. "Now there's a no-wake zone there because they're so flooded."

Zvork said the flooding throughout the community was pretty significant. At one point, a lot of people couldn't find a way out of town.

"This is probably the worst I've ever seen it," she said. "Currie wasn't letting anyone out of town either."

Two dogs also had to be rescued as the water level in a yard rose.

"I knocked on the door and let (the owners) know that their dogs were standing in a lot of water because the kennels were flooded," Zvork said.

Deb and Darwin Saxton planned on working at their places of employment in Tracy but had to switch gears after water began seeping into their basement.

"I came down here at 6:30 (a.m.) and there was only a little spot (of water) around the drain, so Darwin left to go to work," Deb Saxton said.

Less than 20 minutes later, things had drastically changed.

"Whenever it rains, we always seem to get a little bit of water coming in right around the front of the chimney," Darwin Saxton said. "So I pulled everything away from there and flipped the carpet back so it wouldn't get wet. About 10-15 minutes later, this whole room was flooded."

With the help of a few volunteers, the Saxtons were able to remove the 4 inches of water and start drying out the basement.

"Some of the water came up the floor drain, but a lot of it was coming in where the wall meets the floor," Darwin Saxton said. "The ground is so saturated that the water table rises so high that it gets up over the floor and just goes through. That's what was happening at my mom's house, too."

Renee Peterson said she has battled flooding a couple times this year.

"My yard is flooded again and I have about 6 inches of flooding in the basement after this last blast," she said. "It started flooding about 5 in the morning. I was up most of the night. (The lightning) lit up the whole house."

Despite the challenges, Peterson said she's thankful it wasn't worse.

"They shut off the gas and he's shutting off the water right now at (the house where Willard and Andree live)," she said. "And on the other side of the block, they have sewer backing up now."