2011 Flood: From a Personal Perspective in Holt County
By Kathy J. Kunkel and Carla Markt
Holt County Clerk and Holt County Assessor

Historians will find a way to describe the impacts of the Great 2011 Flood in years to come. They will measure and discern from the lasting effects how this flood compares to the benchmarks of the past. In Holt County, Missouri, the people will draw their own conclusions and pass the knowledge down through generations just as we have done with 1952 and 1993’s historic tides. There have been other notable floods, but none with such lasting strength and such devastation as we’ve seen with the siege of 2011. This flood will have a name: Corpstrina. Our children will know its name and the reckless administration and policies that set this debacle in motion.

The United States Army Corps of Engineers sounded the alarm bells in late May of 2011 as they came to terms with high snow melt and un-anticipated rainfall in the northern Rockies.

Water was filling the vast reservoir system at such a heightened rate the storage capacity there would not hold.

Water would be released downstream in a deluge never seen in the United States. Communities along the Missouri River from Montana southward would see higher than normal levels of river flow and flooding was imminent. Holt Countians, being no recent strangers to flood woes, took heed of the warnings and began preparations. In a three-week period citizens packed up their lives, moving household belongings, equipment, livestock and pets to higher ground. Families rented homes, moved in with neighbors, family and friends, as electric and gas meters were pulled at their homes in the danger zone. Businesses closed. Workers became unemployed. Farm equipment and grain was moved at a rapid pace to rid the Missouri River floodplain of valuable assets. What couldn’t be moved or saved were thousands of acres of planted corn and soybeans enjoying fertile ground and bright sunshine and promising a bumper crop; the remaining homes, buildings and grain bins sat empty in a vast ghost town waiting for the coming tempest.

Entire communities rallied to sandbag and fortify permanent and temporary levies to keep the water out. On hot, dry days volunteers stood alongside inmates, missions groups and National Guardsmen filling thousands of sandbags. Young and old worked on 52 miles of levees that make up Holt County’s western border between prime farm land and the Mighty Mo. Dirt and rock were hauled in to armor the earthen levees as sandbags were stacked and great personal risks taken to save what the floodwater so eagerly gobbled up. One by one the levees succumbed to the water’s great pressure.

On the High Bank Levee and Levee #10 workers narrowly escaped tragedy when the levees failed not long after bedraggled workers had finally called it quits. Tragedy came with heart wrenching reality as daylight unveiled the vastness of the expanding flood and the speed with which it was submerging our county. Husbands and wives, farmers and their sons and daughters stopped and stared as a sea of waving blue and muddied brown replaced the endless green fields where we call home.

Holt Countians understand floods. We recognize that naturally-occurring weather patterns bring rise to the Missouri River and occasionally create the potential for flooding conditions. This is a risk we are willing to accept and have done so for over 170 years. This flood is different and it falls on the heels of four preceding years of flood activity on the Missouri River in Holt County.

It is this recurrent cycle -that seems so obviously tied to the management practices of the US Army Corps of Engineers – which we wholeheartedly question. Following enabling legislation to apply the Endangered Species Act to the management practices of the Missouri River, Holt County became a target zone for seasonal flooding. Localized rainfall in the basin added to an increased river height, creating flood conditions in May 2007, June 2008, April 2009, and June and July 2010. This coupled with years of land acquisition in Holt County to restore the Missouri River to a pre-Lewis and Clark, low-water, meandering river have rendered the non-federal levee system in Holt County nearly useless. Pallid Sturgeon chutes, river dike notching and other mitigation efforts to create endangered species habitat have degraded the levee system substructure so significantly that yearly failure is occurring. It is no wonder that Holt County’s citizens feel the USACE has a target on their ground and intends to flood it repeatedly until they choose to sell out. Standing beside a farmer who has lost 1,000 planted acres as he surveys eight to ten feet of water over his planted fields, you begin to understand the despair and to question the motives of those operating the floodgates.

It is not only farmers who are impacted in Holt County and the entire Missouri River corridor.

Businesses, homeowners and recreational properties are directly affected by the floodwater.

In Holt County, even businesses that are high and dry were forced to close after Interstate 29 was detoured for nearly 4 months due to flooding across the border in Iowa.

Burlington Northern and Sante Fe Railroad was forced to cease all operations as the main rail line was swamped for miles, shutting down coal trains and costing the company millions of dollars. Wildlife has been negatively impacted as thousands of acres of cover crops, four Missouri Department of Conservation areas and Squaw Creek National Wildlife Refuge were all victims of the water’s invasion. Bob Brown Conservation Area in southwestern Holt County was severely damaged as the Cannon Levee District levees failed allowing deep, fast water to traverse the area. Habitat more than 20 years in the making was destroyed in a few weeks. Old growth trees and woody vegetation in the entire basin have or will die from the lake-like conditions with over 100 days of water in many areas. The landscape is irrevocably changed. Sand dunes mar once fertile fields, while deep gouges scar roadways and fields alike.

The deepest scars are with the people here. The moonscape left as the water has receded is often described as a war zone. In many ways the people here feel they’ve been through a war. Their sense of community is shaken. Lost are historic churches, neighbors are scattered and lives are forever changed. Tragedy rippled through our small towns when news that a 19-year old National Guardsman was killed on his way home from duty in our county. His life was lost in a car accident, where another guardsman was injured and the young driver was left trying to pull his life back together after he fell asleep at the wheel. Holt County’s folks grieved with their families and prayed for all the guardsmen who gave their hearts and time to help us fight the good fight.

On August 1, 2011 tragedy found us again as 17-year veteran Highway Water Patrol Trooper Fred Guthrie and his K-9 partner were lost in swift floodwaters. Trooper Guthrie shared his lunch that day with colleagues and was discovered missing near a large break in 111 Highway north of Big Lake later in the afternoon. The K-9‘s body was retrieved from the floodwaters a few days later, but as of October 18, 2011, the trooper’s body had not been found. No one will ever know whether the patrolman was helping his K-9 partner in trouble in flooded waters or the K-9 was helping his master. Blue ribbons tied throughout the area remind us that floods don’t just take crops and homes – not everything touched by the rampaging water can be rebuilt.

In fact, some things will never be rebuilt.

Forty to 60 foot holes have been identified throughout the basin, leaving small lakes where roads, rail and combines once ran.

Homes that were inundated for over 90 days with over six feet of water swelled until the sides burst and roofs floated away.

Grain bins crumpled like crushed pop cans and three-foot whitecaps crashed into sheds and raised structures twisting their sides and tilting their foundations. Black mold climbs everything.

For three and a half months the people of Holt County worked around the clock trying to minimize the large losses that have occurred. But in the end 32 levee breaches occurred in Non-Federal and private levee districts within the county boundaries. The breaches range in size from 50 feet to nearly one-half mile. The levee system is in shambles and the USACE says they do not have enough money to assess the damages, let alone begin repairs. In many cases rebuilding will be completely at the cost of the local levee district.

There are only two Federal Levees in Holt County. Both have sustained heavy damage from the torrent of water over the summer. Both levees have been on 24-hour patrol with USACE inspections daily.

Over $2 million has been spent to fortify these levees with sand, rock, trucking and heavy equipment.

Large pumps have been in use for months in an effort to keep seep water on the protected side at a low level.

Rock dikes were constructed on the levees, to help maintain the integrity of the levee system. Rock trucks backed down the top of the levee with up to ten feet of water on the river side to dump rock – even at night. This is a dangerous job, but necessary to keep the levee from failing. One truck driver rolled his truck off the levee on the non-river side, and fortunately was not injured. Danger has become an accepted part of the flood fight as levee district board members, volunteers and workers operate equipment in swift moving water, walk the levee side looking for surfaces that have slipped away into the water, and stayed awake endless hours monitoring for breaches. At times, men were out sandbagging around sand boils in water up to their armpits. The Federal Levees held, but not without great cost.

As the Corps of Engineers began the draw down process easing the river back into its channel, the devastation became visible on our land, but what couldn’t be seen is just as devastating. We’ve been imprinted with scars just like the land. Throughout this tragedy the USACE inquired by letter to landowners asking: wouldn’t they like to sell their ground to the Corps now? Though money is not available for damage assessment or repairs, money is available to continue to purchase land in Holt County. The long-term social and economic losses to our county cannot be measured at this time, but certainly there will be losses that will never be recovered. Infrastructure costs to repair levees and drainage systems, roadways and water lines will be in the many millions of dollars. Loss of real estate property is estimated at $1,500,000; with loss to crops for the 2011 year estimated at $110 million. Residual economic impacts will be felt throughout the region, state and on a national level as the Missouri River corridor produces vast amounts of corn and soybeans used in over 2,500 different items on grocery shelves, penicillin, aspirin and virtually everything that is made with plastic. Acres that transfer to the USACE Missouri River Recovery Program will cease to contribute to the economy at all.

At this point, there seems to be no success story for any of the stakeholders in the Missouri River Basin with the management system currently implemented by the USACE. It is clear that flooding wipes out all conservation efforts for retaining quality land, habitat and vegetation as well as agricultural crops for food and products. No one wins. This is magnified in Holt County, but certainly those flooded in North and South Dakota are equally calling for change along with Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas and Missouri. Common sense must have a role in guidance of the river. We concur with the governor’s of the impacted states that flood control must become the number one operating purpose of the river with all other interests falling after that goal. Billions of dollars have been spent to fight the 2011 Flood and millions, if not billions, will be spent to remedy its damage. The people of Holt County recognize that if the policies and procedures governing the focus of river management do not move to flood control, our way of life will cease to exist. We cannot let this situation occur again.

It is time for the USACE to recognize they are a partner with local communities in the Missouri River floodplain and they cannot operate independently and without regard to the people who live and work within its boundaries. We must do our part and move forward together to develop a consistent levee system, setting back some levee structures from the channel and building a new, reinforced levee system that affords protection for our land and homes. Local knowledge of soil types and river characteristics is essential in building a levee system that will work for both the Corps and the local community. We do not have time for lengthy studies or congressional wrangling. Change must come now.

As the fall leaves mix with blowing sand here in Holt County, we know time is short to make repairs and prepare for flooding in the spring of 2012.

There is no hope to have all levees repaired by spring, when the “rise” will undoubtedly come on the river again.

Recent comments by General McMahon raise concerns here that proposed solutions to this year’s problems will include allowing the river to spread out in areas like Holt County each year as a way to minimize impacts on urban areas and the river system as a whole. It seems the USACE has been working in that direction for years, buying nearly 8,000 acres of land and creating “devastation by design” on thousands more. Holt County has sounded the warning bell this time – to the Corps and our state and federal legislators. We won’t sit by and watch our land slip away quietly. Instead we intend to lead with proactive solutions that offer compromise and benefits to the landowners, the Corps, the county and the region, while holding true to our rural roots.