Skip to main content Skip to office menu Skip to footer
Capital IconMinnesota Legislature

Legislative News and Views - Rep. Dale Lueck (R)

Back to profile

The latest on local flooding

Thursday, July 14, 2016

Dear Neighbor,

Things are improving as the water slowly recedes. We received some very good news when the US Army Corps revised the anticipated crest of the Mississippi River at Aitkin from 17 feet down to about 14.5 feet. As I mentioned yesterday, flood stage at Aitkin is 13 feet. We will still be dealing a lot of water, but not as much as was first expected.

Lt. Gov. Tina Smith visited our area yesterday. The Aitkin County board members, engineer, sheriff and mayor provided an update on how things were going. We are working through getting damaged roads back in order and with the reduction of the river crest to 15 feet Aitkin’s waste treatment plant – which is located right next to the river – should be OK.

After the briefing we provided the Lt. Gov. with a tour in the southeastern part of Aitkin County where we saw the heaviest rain fall and we sustained the most damage. The main county roads have been repaired and are again passable, but we found some of the township roads still underwater and in need of significant repair.

We can be thankful that so far we have not had any serious injuries as a result of the flooding, but one must still be cautious, especially obeying the road closed signs on several of our township roads that remain underwater or are otherwise unpassable.

Townships and cities should carefully document the public infrastructure damage and relay that information to their respective county emergency management officials to see if the total area storm and flood damages will meet the threshold for state assistance with the cost of repairs.

Overall, we came through this in pretty good shape compared to nearby areas, especially to our south and east.  I thanked the Lt. Gov. on behalf of all the citizens of our district for taking the time to come look at how things are going here in our part of the state.

I also want to publicly thank our city, county, state, township and public utility officials that worked around the clock to keep our citizens safe and restore our roads and electric power. Let’s hope the rain stays away for at least for a few more days so we can get everything back to normal.

Please feel free to contact me if you are in need of assistance. You can call me at (218) 927-2495 or email rep.dale.lueck@house.mn.

Sincerely,

Dale