Residents rally as flash floods hit Mankato

MANKATO, Minn. (KEYC) - Wednesday night brought flashbacks for many Mankato residents, who remembered last year’s historic June flooding.

While this round wasn’t as bad, it still brought over 5 inches of rain to Mankato.

In a single neighborhood off of Monks Avenue in Mankato five homes found their basements full of water and cleanup efforts are once again underway.

“I have a beautiful 4-year-old daughter and she lovingly woke me up at about 1 a.m. to which I came downstairs with her and found out that my carpet was wet,” explained Nick Nathe, a resident in the area.

“We’re not really shocked because this happened to us last year about the time of the Rapidan Dam rain happened so I meandered my way downstairs and we had 2 to 3 inches of standing water,” said Brianna Gronholz, who also lives in the neighborhood.

Now those residents are spending their day tearing up carpet and drying out rugs, something that they wish they didn’t have as much practice in.

“We’re kind of in a state of ‘it is what it is,” said Gronholz. “We’re just going to go through the motions of making sure our house gets back in order, taking the steps day by day to make sure that we repair what needs to be repaired.”

Through the gloom, however, is a rallying call for residents to come back together and help each other out like they did one year ago, something that the residents say makes going through flood problems all over again a little bit easier.

“It’s really good to have people in our corner, to have people that can support you,” said Nathe. “I know I’ve had neighbors who have had family and friends come and help them at the eleventh hour when they were going through some stuff and we had a bundle of people coming through to help us this morning, so it’s good to have a strong community backing because these things happen in life and we can help each other through it.”

The flood damage extends around Mankato, as some residents in the Homestead Apartments have reportedly been evacuated due to flooding.

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