LANESBORO, Minnesota, August 23, 2007 – Flood damage this week to the nationally-known Root River State Trail here in southeast Minnesota is estimated at over $1 million by Department of Natural Resources officials, and the figure could go higher when they are able to more closely examine the east half of the trail. More than a foot of rain in the area this past weekend sent the North Root River on a rampage that wiped out an embankment and a 400-foot-long stretch of the trail between Lanesboro and Whalan.

The town of Rushford (pop. 1,700), on the eastern third of the trail, saw “hip-deep” water cover much of its business district Sunday and Monday. Photos show businesses on the periphery of the town with pick-up trucks and cabbed tractors nearly submerged. Foundations of several homes collapsed.

Those flood waters had receded by Thursday in Rushford, leaving mud, filth and stench, according to the Associated Press.

Almost miraculously, no injuries were reported in the southeastern Minnesota trail communities. But there were deaths from flooding elsewhere in Minnesota and in neighboring Wisconsin.

Forrest Boe, director of the DNR Division of Trails and Waterways, told the AP that deep mud covered parts of the Root River State Trail in the Rushford area and on east toward Houston.

“It’s safe to say it will take over $1 million to repair” all the trail damage, Boe said.

The DNR is listing the whole Root River State Trail as being closed. However, business owners and city officials in Lanesboro say there was no damage in their community or on the trail to the west and south. That means at least 30 of the trail’s total of 60 miles is unaffected. The trail’s Internet site headlines its story, “Lanesboro is open for business.”

David Harrenstein, a trail advocate who operates Lanesboro Web Management Group, said Thursday that “we don’t have any damage in Lanesboro, and the trail is open and unaffected all the way to its west end in Fountain and down to its south end in Harmony.

“The trail is also fine between Whalan and Peterson,” Harrenstein continued. “There’s the washout between Lanesboro and Whalan that’s closed, and the trail is also closed from Rushford east to Houston.”

The storm front that caused all the damage had moved south and east by Wednesday, Harrenstein noted.

Looking back on what caused all the damage, the National Weather Service in LaCrosse, Wisconsin, reported that 10 to 12 inches of rain fell on southeast Minnesota and southwest Wisconsin during the weekend. And the Winona, Minnesota, area to the north of the trail reportedly received 17 inches, with much of that draining south.

That made the North Root River erupt.

Its confluence with the more docile South Root River is 2.5 miles east and a little north of Lanesboro.

“There is a big bridge there that goes over the confluence of the two rivers,” Harrenstein said. “If you’re riding out there from Lanesboro on the trail, as you approach the bridge, you are riding on an embankment that the railroad built a century ago between the two rivers. That embankment is what the North Root took out. The bridge is still there, but the embankment and the trail — as long as a football field or longer — are now gone. This washout is no minor deal. I really have no idea how long it will take the DNR to get it fixed, and they probably don’t either.”

Levees broke at Rushford, which is on both the merged Root River and Rush Creek. And for a time Sunday and Monday, Houston was evacuated when it was feared that levees might break there, too. But they held up.

On Monday, the flooding at Houston set new records. Flood stage on the Root there is 15 feet, and by Monday afternoon, it was at 19.3 feet — more than a foot higher than the record set in the spring flooding of 1965.

Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA) officials have already been in the area, assessing the needs and damage.

Harrenstein said that “the fall season is normally the most profitable time of the year for businesses” in Lanesboro and all along the Root River State Trail.

“September and October are normally our biggest months,” he sasid. “The crowd changes then. Through the summer, we get whole families on vacation. But once school starts, then we get more retirees and people who don’t have to stay at home with kids. They’re a group of people who have a lot of money and spend it.”

He said as the current emergency situation eases, leaders of the communities on the trail “will undoubtedly try to get together with the DNR and find out what we all have to do” to repair all the damage.

Meantime, he reiterated, “a whole lot of the trail is open and unaffected. Everything’s open in Lanesboro and all the other towns, except Rushford, and it’s obviously going to take a while to get things cleaned up there.”

Article Published: 08-23-2007