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“That’s where it was,” she said of the trailer, now 30 feet away, its porch smashed through the front doors.
The trailer, which the 48-year-old Kester and her husband, Wade, have owned for almost a year, was among about 20 damaged at Up the Creek Campground when the Waterloo Creek flooded Sunday.
The community in Allamakee County received 7.3 inches of rain as of Sunday evening, according to the National Weather Service office in La Crosse.
The Upper Iowa River, which floods at 14 feet, reached 22.46 feet at Dorchester early Monday morning, just above a 1948 record, according to the weather service.
Roads and bridges were washed out, crops covered with water and numerous rockslides reported throughout the county in the wake of the weekend storms, said Chris Dahlstrom, Allamakee County emergency management coordinator.
Emergency responders in a flat-bottom boat Sunday morning had to rescue three people trapped on a porch at Up the Creek, Dahlstrom said.
While a handful of people live at the campground year-round, most use the trailers as a getaway.
“You have to feel sorry for people,” said Ken Hanson, 73, whose trailer is on land adjacent to the campground but about 5 feet higher. “But we live in a flood zone, and if you live there, you’re going to have to expect something like that.”
The Kesters, who live in Mankato, Minn., said flood insurance doesn’t cover their trailer, as it was in a flood plain.
Wade, 52, said although the trailer has some holes, it’s nothing he can’t fix.
His parents, who own the trailer next door, don’t plan to rebuild and instead will use their leisure money to travel.
“I feel more for them than I do us,” said Rita Kester, 72, Wade’s mom. “They just started coming down here, and they looked forward to the 20 years we have spent.”
While the August 2007 flooding damaged a couple trailers, this year’s was worse, leaving only a couple trailers that possibly could be salvaged, said John Nerstad, who owns Up the Creek with his son.
“It’s been great having the place, but I sort of think it might be the end of it,” said Nerstad, 66. “In the last two years, we stuck a lot of time and money into it, and it’d be like starting all over again.”
Joe Orso can be reached at (608) 791-8429 or jorso@lacrossetribune.com.
