REGIONAL - A major turning point in the record flooding across the Rainy River Basin occurred this past weekend when Rainy Lake officially crested, signaling the start of a painstakingly slow retreat that could last for up to two months.
“The lake appears to have crested and fallen slightly,” said Monday’s report from the National Weather Service Office in Duluth. “Rainy Lake level is 1,113.2 feet, 22 inches above the 2014 peak and 2.5 inches above the now previous record set in 1950. The level of Rainy Lake is expected to fall by 1.5 to three inches between June 13 and June 20.”
The report noted that the lake remains vulnerable to rising again in the event of heavy rainfall across the region, but the NWS forecast through the end of the month is calling for near to below normal precipitation.
And while flows across the watershed remain high for this time of year, inflows to the Namakan chain of lakes, including Kabetogama and Crane Lake, and to Rainy have been falling sharply.
“As decreases continue, any future rainfall will likely just ‘pause’ the trend of falling levels but are unlikely to cause levels to rise above the peak crest,” the report said.
Accordingly, flood mitigation activities around Kabetogama and Crane Lake have dwindled from the days of furious sandbagging, although property owners remain alert to the need of maintaining sandbag walls against potential damage from wind-driven waves and boat wakes as the water slowly recedes.
Kabetogama Township suspended its flood support activities on June 5 after producing about 135,000 sandbags, 35,000 produced by volunteers over a ten-day period before Minnesota National Guard members arrived. Efforts filling and setting sandbags were supported by crews from state correctional facilities in Togo and Willow River, Littlefork School, Hibbing police-assembled volunteers, the Conversation Corps, Voyageurs National Park, Team Rubicon, and St. Louis County Emergency Management and Highway Departments.
Arrowhead Lodge
The inexorable rise and sluggish fall of water over weeks and months instead of days takes a unique kind of toll on the people and property affected. Now more than a week past the crest, Mike Dario, owner of Arrowhead Lodge and Resort in Kabetogama, is grateful his resort was not as hard-hit as some of his neighbors, but it’s still been quite an ordeal battling the flood.
Dario’s dock had sustained heavy damage as a result of high winds just prior to the onset of the flood, and the rising waters unfortunately took care of the rest.
“The high water has really kind of finished them off,” he said. “Any chance we had of saving them or repairing them has gone. That was right before fishing opener.” Dario estimated the loss to be between $100,000 to $200,000.
Ice-out this year was late, but Kabetogama Lake cleared before fishing opener and Dario welcomed anglers to the resort.
“We checked in a bunch of people on Friday prior to opener and by the time those people left they were trudging through water to get to their cars,” Dario said.
As the water kept coming, Dario’s bait house was next to be impacted.
“That’s where I keep all my bait, my ice, it’s where we keep and clean our customers’ fish, it’s where we keep our tackle – it’s a revenue stream for us,” he said. “On top of that, boat rentals have diminished.”
He had to shut down one of his cabins when its gas regulator went underwater, a unit which otherwise would’ve been bringing in close to $2,000 a week, Dario said.
“The one saving grace we had is that our restaurant was open, and then the water kept coming. It flooded our parking lot. We spent $1,000 on gravel last year to redo it and it’s completely underwater,” he said. “That water got waist high in the lot and I couldn’t drive a truck through there anymore without fear of doing damage to it.”
Dario said he held back on starting sandbagging efforts because he didn’t want to diminish the supply for others who needed them more. That ended up leading to the loss of the one cabin, as he never dreamed the water would get that high. But Dario jumped into high gear with sandbagging in the parking lot when the rising waters posed a serious threat to a sewer system and to much more than just Arrowhead Lodge.
“I have two sewer grinder stations in my parking lot,” he said. “The sewer services Puck’s Point Resort, and we would have had to shut it down. If the sewer was taking on the water of the lake it would have shut down not only us, but it would have shut down the entire point.”
But despite the travails, Dario is doing his best to keep things in perspective.
“It’s not all doom and gloom. We have had a significant loss in business revenue and traffic, but we’re still open and we’re still doing the best with it we can. It’s not the end of the world. There are resorts that are shut down due to sewers, there are people with cabins underwater.”
Dario praised the response of the Kabetogama community throughout the crisis.
“I couldn’t be thankful enough for how many people have their hearts on Kabetogama and who really did what they can to help out,” he said.
He’s thankful, too, for the people who have continued to support his resort and others with their continued business.
“Sure, we’ve had some cancellations, but there are people who stuck with us and have had a blast,” he said. “We’ve gotten some feedback that some were thinking about canceling but we’re so glad they came because it was such a good time. This area is up and running and doing well. You may have a curve ball thrown at you with some amenity that’s not here, but the people that are coming here are having a wonderful time and they’re overwhelmed with what they can do up here.”