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Roger and Nancy Dean got a knock on their motor home door about 5 a.m. Sunday asking them to evacuate Goose Island County Park.
The Melbourne, Fla., couple thought it might be flooding, but it was a nearby train derailment. Up to 200 campers were asked to leave the campground, and many went home or to the Wal-Mart parking lot along Mormon Coulee Road.
The Deans had to leave their motor home behind and were among 47 people who showed up at a shelter at La Crosse Central High School’s gymnasium set up by the Scenic Bluffs Chapter of the American Red Cross. But after 2 p.m., the Deans were allowed back on the campground to get their motor home, and they were headed to St. Louis.
They have been through hurricanes before, including Hurricane Frances in 2004, which forced them to sell their damaged home and settle in a retirement community in Melbourne.
“We were not really told why we had to leave,” Roger Dean said. “At first I thought it was flooding, but I didn’t see any. Then we heard about the derailment.”
Nancy Dean said she and her husband survived three hurricanes, but never had been evacuated due to a train derailment. “This was a little strange,” she said. “At least with a hurricane you get a couple days to evacuate.”
The Deans had been traveling to Manitoba, Canada, and wanted take the River Road down to Prairie du Chien when they decided to stay at Goose Island for the night. “We certainly never expected something like this,” Nancy Dean said.
— Terry Rindfleisch / La Crosse Tribune
Iowa family of six endures ‘scary’ night after picking Goose Island to camp
Richard and Nikki Steffans and their four sons of Postville, Iowa, had thought about leaving the campground Saturday night.
“There was water rushing under our trailer, so we thought we had to leave because of the rain,” said Nikki Steffans, whose family stayed at the shelter in La Crosse Central High School.
Nikki Steffans said she and her family usually camp at Veterans Memorial Park in West Salem, Wis., but wanted to give Goose Island a try.
She said the two main roads to Postville had been closed, and she and her family planned to move their camper to Veterans Memorial Park on Sunday night.
“The boys thought this was an adventure, but I felt all the rain was a little scary,” she said.
— Terry Rindfleisch / La Crosse Tribune
Man goes door-to-door alerting neighbors in Minnesota City
Steve Runkle was out to dinner with his wife Saturday night.
As he drove home to Minnesota City, water was rising in the ditches and he worried about his basement.
Around 1:30 a.m. Sunday, some of his neighbors left for a hotel.
Runkle, 57, knocked on nine neighbors’ doors, wading through calf-deep water. By 2:15 a.m. the fire department came to help people evacuate.
His wife smelled gas and told Runkle it was time to go.
He and his wife found shelter with their daughter in Goodview.
Luckily, their daughter lives in Goodview and they found shelter there. He saved two of their three vehicles, but couldn’t save the third. Between telling neighbors about the flood, he had driven two cars on a hill.
Eating a banana and drinking water in the Saint Mary’s field house, he said he was thankful to be safe.
American Red Cross volunteer Shelly Merchlewitz was shaky from adrenaline.
She got the call at 8 a.m., after about four hours of sleep, asking her to help out.
It was the first disaster she ever worked. She said it was amazing and sad and she just couldn’t believe it.
Merchlewitz was getting ready to come to Winona State University 16 years ago when she read about the July 1991 flood that hit Stockton.
This time, she was the one helping people register.
She handed teddy bears to small children. She directed people to blankets, cots, granola bars and coffee.
Runkle had a cell phone, and the jeans, flannel shirt and a Pink Floyd T-shirt he borrowed from his daughter’s boyfriend.
His house was gone.
“This is it,” he said. “This is everything I got in the world.”
— Britt Johnsen / Lee Newspapers
From Rushford: ‘You never believe it, then you come here’
RUSHFORD, Minn. — Julie Eide put what possessions she might need — those that weren’t destroyed by the flood — in a white trash bag.
Water filled her basement and four inches of the first story of her Rushford home.
The freezer full of meat, gone. Washer and dryer, gone. Hot water heater, gone. Chevy Blazer, gone.
Eide and her husband, Jim, spent three hours Sunday emptying what they could from their house. Water matted the carpet, left stains on the wood furniture and sent their cat named Flash hiding in the upstairs.
Jim Eide drank a Miller High Life, standing on soggy carpet in the entry to his kitchen Sunday afternoon. He looked defeated.
“You never believe it, then you come here,” he said, his voice wavering.
The couple planned to stay with family in Peterson, Minn., while they figure out what to do. Right now, Julie said, there are more questions than answers.
Will the basement walls collapse? Will homeowner’s insurance cover the damage? If not, how will they afford to fix their house? How will they get to work? Do they take everything now or later? Will mold destroy the house?
“It’s nothing fancy but it’s all we got,” Jim Eide said. “Or all we had.”
— Amber Dulek / Lee Newspapers
