Shellsburg Flood of 2009
(AND THEN THE RAINS CAME)
By Karolynn Roehr

Request: If anyone has more pictures of the flood they'd like to share please email them to Ed Shaeffer, ed@jemvideo.com (please put as subject line: Shellsburg flood photos)

August 2009

Tuesday, August 25th it began raining in Shellsburg and by Wednesday morning the 26th a little over 5 inches of rain had fallen. And still it continued to rain and by Thursday afternoon a little over 13 inches total rain came down. Many homes experienced water in their basements necessitating pumping out and mopping up – some had never seen water before. There were many scenes and stories of the water. As one toured around the city there were unusual sights: boats jammed up against bridges; homes surrounded by water; gullies washed in the golf course, under railroad tracks, under sidewalks, etc; sandbagging around the Alliant substation;

More photos below

city park filling with water; Commercial St. partially submerged; storage buildings and car wash surrounded by water; large hay bale caught by railroad bridge; and the many drainage pipes/hoses pushing large flows of water out and away.

While we know that Shellsburg did not experience the devastation that places did last summer in the flood of 08, there were many people who remembered last year when the water rose in Shellsburg and say that this year was worse for Shellsburg.

The most visible devastating damage was done to our special city park. With the shelter house that has withstood many floods being surged from its foundation and destroyed. If not for some large trees it most likely would have roared into the open-air shelter and damaged/destroyed it too. On the basketball court, the fence and one of the new basket hoops was destroyed or lost to the swift water.

Wildcat Golf Course will take much work to get it back into playing shape. The rising water covered much of it as the creek swept through. It tore the grounds up, depositing sand and washing deep gullies.

One needs to remember the special people who were out and about helping in many ways and many places. They deserve a big round of applause and thank you for everything that they did for our community. THANK YOU!

Now comes the clean-up and repair. It will present many challenges and much cost as well as labor to restore the flooded areas. We can be thankful that we live in a community that cares.