MPR’s Dan Kraker reports on record water levels on Rainy Lake, where homes are flooding, docks are under 5 to 6 feet of water, and roads and campsites are closed along the Canadian border as residents continue to battle rising floodwaters.
Fueled by a heavy winter snowpack, a late ice-out, and drenching spring rains, water levels soared in the Rainy River basin in 2022. The basin flows northwest from the Boundary Waters Canoe Area, to Lake Vermilion near Ely and Tower, to the huge border lakes surrounding Voyageurs National Park and beyond. Rainy Lake crested at 1,113.2 feet above sea level, 2.5 inches above the past record set in 1950.
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SPEAKER: There is a slow motion crisis unfolding on Rainy Lake along the Canadian border. Today, floodwaters set an all time record as they continue to creep upward. Homes are flooded, docks are submerged under five feet of water, roads and campsites are closed. But Dan Kraker reports that the water is not expected to subside for weeks, and exhaustion is starting to set in.
DAN KRAKER: For the past three weeks, Gary Potter has worked from sunup to sundown in a desperate bid to keep the rising waters of Rainy Lake away from his home. He stacked thousands of sandbags around three sides of his house.
GARY POTTER: When you look out your window, you got a wall of sandbags that is about head high. And there's water on the other side of it, and there's a wall of sandbags between you and your house. And you just hope that it holds.
DAN KRAKER: When he's not frantically trying to protect his own home, he's helping his neighbors defend theirs. And when the 57-year-old finally crawls into bed at night, he has to get up every two hours to put fuel in the half dozen pumps that are keeping his house dry.
GARY POTTER: But your hands are sore. Your back is sore. It's tiring. It's day after day. And my neighbor just says, when is this ever going to end? It wears you out.
DAN KRAKER: Koochiching County Sheriff, Perryn Hedlund, says about 250 homes have suffered some sort of damage along the south shore of Rainy Lake, east of International Falls. He says some residents are just too tired to fight the floodwaters any longer.
PERRYN HEDLUND: There are some people that simply have built their sandbag walls as high as they can go, and then they can't go any higher. Or their pumps have reached capacity, and they can't keep up with it. Or their wall has been compromised. And once their wall is breached, sometimes it's hard to get it back.
DAN KRAKER: Hedlund says he expects more people to surrender to the flooding as the water continues its relentless rise. Fueled by a heavy winter snow pack, a late ice out, and then drenching spring rains, the National Weather Service expects Rainy Lake to rise by nearly another foot in the next week. Earlier today, the lake broke the record high water level set in 1950. NWS meteorologist, Ketzel Levens says the lake likely won't peak until mid to late June.
KETZEL LEVENS: And even after that point, we've got so much water to get out of the system. That once the decreases begin, it's going to take a long time, potentially in the realm of four to six to eight weeks for anything to come back down to reasonable summertime levels.
DAN KRAKER: Meaning July or even August. With no end to the flooding in sight, businesses that rely on tourists and anglers are working overtime to stay open. At Thunderbird Lodge, office manager, Alicia Boudra, says so far they've lost one cabin to the rising lake, with another one on the brink. But she says staff is working through the night fortifying sandbag walls and running water pumps to keep the lodge and restaurant dry.
ALICIA BOUDRA: So far we are successful and trying to stay very positive, really just hoping that we can get through this and stay open through this. It is our livelihood. This time of year gets us through the entire season.
DAN KRAKER: Voyageurs National Park also remains open. But with the water continuing to rise, officials have closed several areas, including the Kettle Falls Hotel and all campsites on Rainy Lake. Although houseboat sites on the lake remain open. Meanwhile, the back-breaking effort to protect homes and businesses continues. Another 50 Minnesota National Guard members arrived yesterday to help the sandbagging effort. But with weeks before the waters are expected to recede, Sheriff Hedlund says he worries how residents who are already stressed and exhausted will hold up.
PERRYN HEDLUND: I've lived in this community my entire life. And it's hard to see your friends and neighbors-- I mean, they're struggling. Sometimes it feels like there's nowhere for them to turn, and that's tough.
DAN KRAKER: He says the Red Cross and Salvation Army have behavioral health specialists on the ground to help people in need. And volunteers are also helping with sandbags. Gary Potter says he'll never be able to repay the friends, family, and community members who've helped protect the house he built with his three sons 15 years ago.
GARY POTTER: You don't realize how much you appreciate your home until there's a chance that it could be taken away from you.
DAN KRAKER: Potter says that's motivated him to do everything he can to hold off the flooding, one sandbag at a time. Dan Kraker, NPR News.