STREETS IN FREEMAN FLOOD FROM RUNOFF FROM THE SOUTH
Major runoff from an adjacent field raced across the South County Road, into the north ditch and through the Prairie Arboretum, causing massive flooding in portions of Freeman early Friday afternoon, June 21.
“There’s nothing that could have been done,” said Dave Kaufman, who is president of the Freeman Prairie Arboretum Board of Directors. “A quarter mile of road went underwater and it had to be several inches deep, and all of that ended up in that ditch. There’s only so much the arboretum can take.”
In fact, he said, the 40-acre grounds located in the southwestern portion of the community handled the water the way it was designed to; there was just too much of it.
“The lake is fine, the spillway is fine and the culvert that comes into the arboretum actually held a lot of the water back,” he said. “That saved us for a while, but once it topped off there was no holding it back.”
The flooding turned severe following another heavy downpour late Friday morning after what had been six inches of rainfall the day and night before. Full blocks were underwater, including a stretch on South Main Street between the Freeman Academy campus and the downtown business district that had residents wading shin-deep in the middle of the street. Amy and Ryan Sorensen were among them after needing to get out of the house and the several feet of water that flooded their family’s finished basement.
Amy Sorensen posted a few pictures on her Facebook page with an acknowledgement that there were others who had it worst, along with a teary emoji.
Later, Shane Johnson with the South Dakota Highway Patrol and several Freeman firefighters were rerouting traffic at the corner of Highway 81 and the North County Road later Friday afternoon; the intersection of Highway 81 and Highway 44 three miles north of Freeman was closed to traffic, as was the “Bridgewater Road” west of town.
And then, the South Dakota Department of Transportation issued a “no travel advisory” for all state highways in the southeastern part of the state.
Meanwhile, additional moisture and severe weather is expected across the region later tonight and into the overnight hours, likely adding to the 11-plus inches of rain the Freeman community has received since Monday morning.
This is a developing story.
From earlier
Multiple reports around Freeman Friday morning, June 21 indicated that at least six inches of rain had fallen in the community since Thursday — and that’s on top of the three-plus inches that fell Sunday into Monday.
As a result, the city of Freeman is asking people to limit water usage because the sewer system and city lagoon are overloaded, and additional heavy rains are expected on Friday, exacerbating a situation that has already resulted in flooded basements and — especially in some rural areas — impassable roads.
County officials are advising extreme caution when approaching standing water. iIn fact, the Turner County Sheriff’s Office issued a no travel advisory just before 7:30 a.m., and Hutchinson County Sheriff Maurice Waltner said travel is ill advised and could be extremely dangerous after dark tonight.
“You just can’t see it,” Waltner said of water over rural roads, noting that the driver of a pickup had to be rescued from the roof of his vehicle by the fire department in the today’s early morning hours because he hit a flooded road and lost control.
“And the water was running so fast we couldn’t get to him from the road,” he said. “We had to go around through a field.”
Waltner said workers from the DOT, the Hutchinson County Sheriff’s Office and Hutchinson County and putting up barricades where they can, “but we can’t get everywhere or see everything,” he said.
And with more rain coming today and tonight, the sheriff speculated that 50 to 60% of rural roads could be impassible somewhere along the way. Furthermore, he said, there is growing concern about the rain’s impact on Ambush Acres eight miles straight west of Freeman, Lake Menno and Lake Henry by Scotland
“I’m advising zero traffic on roads at night,” he said.
Photo posted on Facebook by Sioux National Ag, the vet clinic in Freeman.
In town, Freeman’s southside, where rural runoff flows into the Prairie Arboretum and then comes into town, felt the brunt of the overload. The entire yard in front of the Clifford Wood home at Seventh and Main was underwater, basements sustained multiple inches of rain in that area and, at Freeman Regional Health Services Assisted Living (formally known as the Salem Home), maintenance workers were dealing with an inch-and-a-half of water in the basement there.
Other than limited use of water, “there’s nothing you can do — not when you have 10 inches of rain,” said Freeman Mayor Michael Walter, who was out and about during the overnight hours and said the local flooding began around 2:30 a.m., when water started pouring over the South County Road. “The good Lord is in charge now.”
“Inundated would be the word,” said Menno Mayor Darrell Mehlhaf, who was hearing reports of five-plus inches of rain since yesterday in that community. “We have a lot of water in basements and a lot of that is from an overrun sewage system. It just takes time to get the water down. We’ve got as many pumps running as possible; there’s only a few places we can pump it so it doesn’t come back and create more problems.”
Mehlhaf said people are often quick to say that they’ve never seen anything like this before, “but from some of the reports I’m hearing, this is pretty unprecedented. I’ve seen water over roads that I’ve never seen before.”
