Rob Skutevik, a pastor of the Fond du Lac Community Church, talks about his experience with the Duluth flooding. He and his family left with the water lapping up his front steps, and those of the church next door.
The official Duluth total rainfall on June 19-20, 2012, was 7.25”, with Duluth International Airport breaking several rainfall records during this weather event. Locally high amounts in the 8–10-inch range were reported throughout Duluth neighborhoods and along the North Shore of Lake Superior. The steep terrain, and numerous creeks and rivers, played a significant role in the devastating damage and flooding that occurred in the Duluth community. The Fond Du Lac and West Spirit Mountain neighborhoods of Duluth and Thomson Township in Carlton County were evacuated, and a raging Kingsbury Creek flooded the Lake Superior Zoo, drowning over a dozen animals.
Transcripts
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[MUSIC PLAYING] [? ROB STRUDWICK: ?] My name is Rob [? Strudwick ?] from the Fond Du Lac area here in Duluth, probably about 3/4 of a mile from the river. About 12:30 my kids woke me up and said, you have to look in the yard. And, I'm thinking there's standing water. Yeah, big deal. And then all of a sudden, I look and there's literally a river running through my front backyard, and there's 3 or 4 feet of water on the street. So we're pretty much trapped at that point.
This morning when the light came up, you could just see inching closer and closer. We were watching the news trying to get updates on flooding and the weather and what the forecast was looking like. And we saw a bleep on the bottom that the Fond Du Lac area had been evacuated. And that was ironic because here we are living in Fond Du Lac, and we're still there.
So that's when we called and said, we're not really sure how we do this. And they said, we'll send a truck out to you. So they did. And by the time the truck arrived to get us, the water was all the way up to our door and I assume it was still rising. So we're really not sure what we're going to go back and find tomorrow or whenever we get back to there.
SPEAKER 2: As Rob Strudwick, the pastor of fond Du Lac Community Church in Duluth, he's lived in the Fond Du Lac neighborhood for only two weeks. His house is right next door to his church, so he's worried about flood damage there as well.
We'll continue to bring you some voices from the Northland as we continue to bring you coverage of the flooding in Duluth and Northeastern Minnesota. The worst flooding in 40 years. Rain totals in the 7 to 9-inch range in many places. Stay tuned to Minnesota Public Radio news.