Flood Update: Small Minn. Towns Say They're Ready for Flood

MONTEVIDEO, Minn. (AP) - The Minnesota River is expected to rise to major flood stage by the weekend in the western Minnesota city of Montevideo, which was devastated by the worst and second-worst floods in its history in 1997 and 2001.

Officials say they're ready.

Even after the projected Sunday crest was unexpectedly raised by another foot-and-a-half, officials were confident the tens of millions of tax dollars and thousands of man-hours invested in recent years would help hold back the river as it runs high and fast through town.

"I think what in the past would have been a major flood will be a minor inconvenience," Montevideo City Manager Steve Jones told

The Associated Press on Tuesday.

Snows are melting and rivers swelling across the Upper Midwest, causing another year of massive sandbagging efforts to hold back the Red River in Fargo, N.D. and Moorhead, Minn. But about 160 miles south, officials in Montevideo and neighboring Granite Falls don't expect to do the same.

That's because both towns have put their faith in flood mitigation - new flood walls and taller permanent dikes and levees, relocation of dozens of homes and businesses in the path of flooding, and other investments in keeping themselves dry.

Possible heavy rains or other weather fluctuations have officials on alert, particularly because this year's crest is coming much earlier than in the past. But new flood barriers in both towns are intended to protect against a flood even worse than what hit in 1997.

"We learned that you have to have a plan," Granite Falls City Manager Bill Lavin said.

The Red River virtually destroyed Grand Forks, N.D., in 1997.

The much smaller Montevideo and Granite Falls were relatively overshadowed, but were among the worst-hit parts of Minnesota outside the Red River Valley. The flood cost each city about $1 million in direct flood-fighting costs, and millions more in damage to local property owners.

In Granite Falls, home to about 3,000 residents, they had filled 800,000 sandbags in less than a week's time. That wasn't enough to stop floodwaters that forced everyone to use portable toilets for almost a month and to boil all their water for three weeks.

In Montevideo, with about 6,000 people and at the confluence of the Minnesota and Chippewa rivers, about 500 residents were evacuated from a low-lying neighborhood where 135 homes and 25 businesses were inundated.

After the waters receded, "everybody thought, well, that's it - it'll never be that bad again," Lavin said. "Then 2001 happened."

While not quite as severe, the 2001 thaw saw the same rivers flood many of the same spots. Again, Montevideo and Granite Falls tallied flood-fighting bills of almost $1 million each.

After that, both towns decided it was time to do something sweeping. In the ensuing decade, officials in both secured many millions in federal and state dollars as well as raised money locally.

Jones estimated Montevideo has spent nearly $81 million so far, with another $30 million in projects still on its wishlist. All but about 20 homes in the low-lying subdivision were moved or demolished and the city is in the midst of a three-year project to build a series of earthen levees at key spots. A new water treatment plant has been built further from the river, and a new wastewater plant is in the works too.

Granite Falls has spent nearly $30 million, also relocating its water treatment plant, moving and demolishing homes, and relocating a number of downtown businesses to higher ground, including a hardware store, a jewelry store, a dentist's office and city hall.

"We really got a lot of stuff moved out of the way, and we're really in a much better position than we've been in in the past," said Granite Falls Mayor Dave Smiglewski.

Last spring, the Minnesota and Chippewa rivers both flooded again - not as bad as '97 or '01, but still high enough to make it the 5th worst flood on record in both places. This time, in Montevideo, it only cost the city about $50,000 to fight and left only minor damage.

"If that had been 15 years ago, it would have been tens of millions of dollars in damage," Jones said.

While it's been tremendously expensive to protect the two small towns, officials in both places said it's cost-effective in all the public and private money that won't have to be spent in fighting and cleaning up after floods.

In addition, Jones said there was a large psychic toll on the Montevideo residents who fought three major floods within a dozen years.

"Who wants this to be their whole life for the entire spring?" Jones said. "It just wears you out."

(Copyright 2010 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)