JACKSON -- Roads and bridges have become the latest front in Jackson County's battle against the autumn flooding that struck southwest Minnesota last week, and federal authorities will begin assessing the damage today.
"FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) is going to be here already (today)," said Jeff Johnson, Jackson County's emergency management director.
Of the 30-plus counties affected in Minnesota, Jackson is considered to be in the top 10 as far as the damage it received, according to Johnson.
It normally takes about two weeks for local agencies to prepare for FEMA's damage assessment. However, thanks to the efforts of local emergency management personnel and their cooperation with each other and state and federal agencies, the damage assessment will begin today.
"This really went well, and it helps us be prepared for things that are going to happen in the next few days," Johnson said.
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The Des Moines river's rise prompted preventative sandbagging efforts in the city of Jackson Thursday and Friday, and also flooded large swaths of farmland, parks and ball fields in Jackson and Windom alike.
"This event is far worse than the one we had in 2007," Johnson said. "Fourteen of the townships now... are going to have some kind of damage."
Johnson estimated the floods would cost the county and townships about a quarter of a million dollars, and that was without having all the townships' damage reports in.
"Typically, FEMA will pay 75 percent for those damages or repairs... that they accept," Johnson said. Some of the damage may have been done prior to the most recent storm, however, and part of FEMA's task will be to determine when the damage was done.
Because some of it will already be repaired by the time FEMA sees it, photographic evidence will also be important in FEMA's assessment.
Tim Stahl, Jackson County's highway engineer, showed the Jackson County Board of Commissioners Tuesday a map of the county roads with damaged locations marked with red dots and symbols.
There were 43 instances of rain damage to roads, about seven locations where gravel had been washed off the road, and three culverts needing to be repaired or replaced, as well as at least one ditch bank repair, one ditch washout at a bridge, one field driveway washout, one hole in the pavement, four shoulder repairs and three instances where water had covered the road.
The map didn't include any damage to non-county roads.
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If they add township roads to the list and map that damage as well, "then it'll look like chickenpox on that map," Stahl said.
Jackson County commissioners sent a resolution Tuesday asking the governor of Minnesota to include Jackson County in Minnesota's request for a presidential disaster declaration.
