The Sioux City Journal’s #1 Story of 2024: Record flooding swamped NW Iowa communities
By Nick Hytrek – Sioux City Journal, Iowa (TNS)
As 2024 began, Siouxland needed moisture. After experiencing months of drought and dry conditions, the area was in desperate need of above-normal spring rainfall to make up for long-term moisture deficits.
Mother Nature granted that wish. From March through May, much of the region saw plentiful rains that replenished dry soil conditions.
The elation of emerging from drought turned to despair over the course of one weekend in June, when record-breaking rains swelled area rivers already running higher than normal because of the wet spring to levels never seen before and led to flooding that devastated several Siouxland communities.
“You had everything necessary for an event like this to happen come together at the same time,” said Justin Glisan, Iowa’s state climatologist.
VIDEO: McCook Lake street collapse damages several homes
Floodwaters washed out a section of Northshore Drive in McCook Lake, South Dakota, causing several homes to be heavily damaged.
Flooding caused hundreds of millions of dollars in damage to homes, businesses and public infrastructure across the area. That catastrophic flooding, along with the ensuing cleanup and ongoing recovery, is the Journal’s top story of 2024.
By June 20, areas of Siouxland already had seen consecutive months of above-average rainfall. In many locations, the ground was nearly saturated and had little ability left to absorb more water — certainly not as much as was to come.
From June 20-22, a stationary front parked over the Iowa-Minnesota border sucked up moisture coming from the Gulf of Mexico and from the atmosphere. The front produced heavy rainfall across eastern and southeast South Dakota, northwest Iowa and southwest Minnesota. In some areas, between 10 to 20 inches of rain fell — six month’s worth of rain in three days. It was the perfect storm, one might say, of hydrological and meteorological conditions.
“When you have all these ingredients come together along a stationary front, you can see these events,” Glisan said.
The water quickly overwhelmed creeks and rivers and surged downstream, striking one town after another, resulting in a flooding event likely to occur once every 1,000 years.
Sioux City flooding
Russell Leigh looks down a flooded Fairbanks Street in Sioux City’s Riverside neighborhood on June 24. The neighborhood was one of many in towns and cities across Siouxland to see severe flood damage this summer.
In just hours on the night of June 21 into the following morning, the Rock River left a large portion of Rock Valley under water. At the same time, the Little Sioux River at Spencer swamped homes and businesses on both sides of the river that runs through town.
Water continued to pulse down the Little Sioux valley, leading to widespread flooding in Sioux Rapids, Cherokee and Correctionville. The Rock River dumped its contents into an already swollen Big Sioux River, which flooded along Iowa’s western border in Plymouth and Sioux counties, and a record amount of water swept across Union County in South Dakota late on June 23, wiping out a number of homes along McCook Lake in North Sioux City and causing damage in Sioux City’s Riverside neighborhood.
Rivers hit record levels at nearly every measuring gauge.
In Rock Valley, the Rock River reached 27.64 feet, well above the former record of 22.7. The Little Sioux River at Correctionville reached 33 feet. The previous record was 27. The Big Sioux River at North Sioux City and Sioux City crested at 44.98. The former record was 37.7.
“We broke pretty much every record that’s in existence on the river with this flood,” Union County Emergency Management director Jason Westcott said of readings along the Big Sioux River, where many of the gauges were destroyed or rendered incapable of calculating the high water levels.
VIDEO: Spencer resident recounts flood rescue
Robbie Gerlock and his father, Jared, recount how Robbie had to be rescued by boat after the Little Sioux River began flooding in Spencer Saturday evening. Spencer residents, including the Gerlocks, are starting flood recovery efforts.
As flood waters began to recede, the true impact of the disaster was revealed among the mud and debris. Damage ranged from water-filled basements to homes with collapsed foundation walls or, as was the case at McCook Lake, houses washed away. Roads, bridges and utility lines were damaged. Municipal storm sewer pumps and wastewater treatment plants stressed with the high volumes of water were damaged or failed.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency estimates damage to public infrastructure in Northwest Iowa at $234 million, a number likely to rise as local governments begin to receive more accurate assessments on damages and determine how much repairs or replacements will cost.
“It speaks to the magnitude of the impact,” said Mike Cappannari, external affairs director for FEMA’s Region 7, which includes Iowa, Nebraska, Missouri and Kansas
That magnitude also is shown in the impact flooding had on individuals.
Westcott said Union County saw 330 homes affected and an estimated $57 million in damages to individual properties.
Residents in Union County and across Northwest Iowa looked to state and federal officials, namely FEMA, for help. Many learned the hard reality that FEMA doesn’t pay 100% of damages.
2024 Flooding in Rock Valley
Flood waters flow over 10th Street west of 9th Avenue in Rock Valley, Iowa, June 22.
“They believe if I apply for FEMA, they’ll pay for everything. That’s not the way FEMA works. I wish it was,” Westcott said.
FEMA can provide a maximum of $45,000 to individuals through two separate programs, Cappannari said. Small Business Administration loans and other programs can provide additional assistance.
“In many instances, we are not going to get them back to where they were before the flood. We can only provide so much by law,” he said.
Cappannari said more than $65 million was issued to more than 6,000 households across Northwest Iowa, a large portion of them in Spencer and Rock Valley.
A county-by-county breakdown of FEMA awards to individuals illustrates the extent of damage in those two communities and their counties. In Clay County (Spencer), $25.8 million was provided to 2,321 households. Sioux County (Rock Valley) saw $20 million issued to 948 households.
2024 Flooding in Rock Valley
A car can be seen nearly completely submerged near the corner of Frontage Road and 8th Avenue after large parts of the city of Rock Valley, Iowa flooded June 22.
Other counties also saw millions of dollars awarded to hundreds of people: O’Brien County: $3.8 million to 710 households; Woodbury County: $3.4 million, 233 households; Lyon County: $3.3 million, 553 households; Cherokee County: $1.3 million, 97 households; and Osceola County: $1.1 million, 224 households. Households in Buena Vista and Plymouth counties received $662,000 and $322,000, respectively.
With the application period over, FEMA officials are focused on providing temporary housing for residents displaced by the flooding. Cappannari said about 100 temporary housing units, the majority of them in Rock Valley, are currently occupied.
“The focus and priority for all of us is to provide or find more long-term housing options and long-term housing solutions,” Cappannari said. “We’ll be there as long as it takes. Certainly we will be there as long as we have families in temporary housing.”
FEMA officials generally avoid comparing one disaster to another, but the housing mission in Northwest Iowa is the largest in the four-state region since a tornado struck Joplin, Missouri, in 2011, Cappannari said.
Rebuilding continues across the region. Most people have received their FEMA payments by now. Some have made repairs, others are weighing their options, Westcott said.
Hawarden flooding
Volunteers sandbag at Central Park in Hawarden, Iowa, on June 22 in the wake of flooding from the Big Sioux River. Massive upstream rainfall sent the river over its banks in Hawarden causing flooding that prompted evacuations.
“Some people have already moved on,” he said. “Some people are still debating what they’re going to do.”
Recovery will take time. Just last month, the North Sioux City Council awarded contracts for the demolition of 20 homes at McCook Lake and installation of a temporary asphalt road on Northshore Drive, which saw large portions swept away. A permanent concrete street will be rebuilt in the future. A solution on removing soil and debris that was swept into the lake is still being sought.
“They’ve done a lot of improving already, but there’s a lot of improving yet to be done,” Westcott said of North Sioux City’s progress on stabilizing and cleaning up the area around McCook Lake. “Disaster recovery is not a fast process.”
Not nearly as fast, many people unfortunately learned in 2024, as a flood can alter the landscape.
(c)2024 Sioux City Journal, Iowa
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