State Emergency Operations Center coordinates flooding response
A Flood Warning was in effect for the City of St. Paul Wednesday night. The Mississippi River’s rise has Harriet Island Regional Park Underwater.
“This is, it’s amazing,” said Dao Lor, who lives in the city. “We come here all the time but it’s just a completely different landscape compared to a couple of weeks ago.”
In Shakopee, meanwhile, the overflowing Minnesota River caused the closure of parts of Valleyfair Amusement Park.
“We have two rollercoasters back there and then a water raft ride, which is ironically closed,” said Melissa Ferlaak, the PR and communications manager for Valleyfair, who explained a parking lot is also closed due to high water currently. “There’s nothing we can do, we can just wait it out.”
The park hopes to have the rides back open in time for the Fourth of July.
“When the water gets out of the floodplain of the three rides then we’ll open up those rides after doing stress tests and doing re-safety checks,” said Ferlaak.
The fluid situation across Minnesota is being watched closely at the State Emergency Operations Center (SEOC), which was activated on Saturday.
“There is a lot going on statewide,” said Howie Padilla, the communications director for the Department of Public Safety.
He was at the SEOC on Wednesday as one of many people working to create a coordinated response. It brings together FEMA, state departments, including the Minnesota Departments of Health and Transportation, voluntary organizations and others.
They collaborate to get resources to communities when a request for assistance comes in.
“We have a place where all of the counties can come in and give us their information, they can get some of the answers they need,” said Padilla.
County emergency management teams are reporting damage to the SEOC as well, which will be used by the state as it compiles a report to ask for federal relief. The representatives in town from FEMA are a resource to the state agencies as they work on that proposal.
“We know, yes, the waters are going to recede,” said Padilla. “Just because the waters recede doesn’t make it a light switch where everything is going to get better like that we know that recovery for a lot of folks is going to take a long time.”
The partial activation of the SEOC can be scaled up or down depending on the weather and flooding conditions.
“It’s going to last as long as it needs,” said Padilla of the activation.