I just drove up the road toward Clear Lake in Russell when I spotted a yellow Russell Fire Department truck parked on the side of the road. It was parked next to a water pumper. I approached one of the men working at the site and asked him what they were doing.

“Talk to the mayor. He will be here shortly,” the man said.

Sure enough, a few minutes later a pickup truck approached and a man wearing a t-shirt and baseball cap jumped out.

“Hi, are you the mayor?” I asked him as he approached.

“Not me,” he said.

“Oh,” I said.

In a subdued tone, but with a smile, he said, “Yes I’m.”

I laughed before I told him my name and I was with the Marshall Independent.

“You are a week too late,” he then said.

He laughed and said, ” Like I tell my guys, if you can’t have fun, stay home.

What can I do for you?”

I just had my first interaction with Mayor Roger Hook of Russell. And it was a good representation of what was taking place on Tuesday across southwest Minnesota.

I started my day waking up to thunder and the sound of rain. I looked at my phone and read a text message from newsroom copy editor Karin Elton.

“The (police) scanner is very busy,” the text read.

Reporter Deb Gau was already checking out flooding in different locations in Marshall. I called reporter Jenny Kirk who lives in the Balaton area and asked her to check out flooding in Balaton and Tracy if she can make it there. Karin alerted me that roads to Tracy were blocked due to the flooding.

I jumped in my car and headed toward County Road 33 in Marshall where flooding forced officials to block an intersection at that location. I found more flooding at Seventh Street and Kossuth Avenue.

Kirk was having a difficult time finding a way into Tracy, so I headed in that direction. A couple miles from the city limits was the nearest point I could get to Tracy. But Kirk called back and reported she was in Tracy.

So I headed to Lynd. Elton alerted me that a section of County Road 5 was washed out. After taking some photos, I headed to Russell. And of course, that is where I found Mayor Hook.

It is there that I discovered what neighbor helping neighbor really means when disaster strikes. Especially in small communities like Russell which has less than 400 residents.

High water was invading residential properties and the mayor needed to do something.

“We got to do what we can for the people,” Hook told me. “We will keep pumping and hopefully we can protect everybody’s property. It will take a lot of pumping.”

He then turned to his maintenance and utilities worker Glenn Grant who was standing next to us.

“We got long hours, don’t we?” the mayor said.

“I’m just glad the sewer system is keeping up with it. We are not running into problems with that. We are lucky with that,” Grant answered.

Grant and the mayor joined 10 other volunteers to help “keep the people in town dry.”

Mayor Hook and Grant were coming to the aid of their neighbors. Just like other communities in southwest Minnesota. I know neighbors were helping neighbors in Slayton, Tracy, Balaton, Wabasso and other small towns because I looked at the photos Kirk submitted from her travels.

I saw the photo of Teresa Cooling pushing a wheelbarrow containing a shop vac toward a flooded street in Forman Acres on Lake Shetek. She was taking the shop vac to a neighbor in distress.

I looked at photos of neighbors helping neighbors clearing out rugs and other debris from flooded homes in Tracy.

I also looked at photos of neighbors wading in knee deep water or using a boat to reach other neighbors who needed help.

It’s times like this that we need a Mayor like Roger Hook. It’s times like these a neighbor needs a neighbor.

You can follow Mike Lamb at Twitter@indymlamb