A Minnesota family living on the edge of a collapsed dam says it’s only a matter of time until their 50-year-old home falls 85 feet to the ground.
The 114-year-old Rapidan Dam on the Blue Earth River is in a “state of imminent failure” after severe flooding caused by abnormally high levels of rainfall.
The situation has endangered The Dam Store, known for its homemade pies, as well as the home of the family that has owned it for five decades.
‘It will happen. We don’t know when, but it will be inevitable that the house will collapse,” said owner Jenny Barnes. KARE.
Aerial footage shows the house teetering on the edge of the river as floodwaters rush across the eroded land.
A Minnesota family living on the edge of a collapsed dam says it’s only a matter of time until their home of 50 years collapses.
‘It will happen. We don’t know when, but it will be inevitable that the house will collapse,” owner Jenny Barnes told KARE.
“It’s my childhood. I grew up in the house, I grew up in the dam shop. I’ve been there my whole life,” Barnes said. CBS News.
The store has been open since 1910 and has been in the family since 1972, when it was purchased by Barnes’ father, Jim Hruska, who still lives in the house next to the store.
—That’s our life too. That’s our business; that is our livelihood. “It means everything to us,” Barnes told Fox 9.
‘It will happen. We don’t know when, but it will be inevitable that the house will collapse.
Barnes recalled the moment he heard loud bangs and saw flashes of light at 2 a.m. Monday and knew it was time for his family to evacuate.
Rapidan Dam store owner Jenny Barnes (pictured) recalled the moment she heard loud bangs and saw flashes of light at 2am on Monday and knew it was time for her family to evacuate.
The store has been open since 1910 and has been family owned since 1972. Barnes is seen in 2022.
Barnes’ father, Jim Hruska, has run the store since he bought it in 1972.
“We had to evacuate this morning, get everything we could out,” he said. WCCO.
The explosion Barnes witnessed was the Xcel Energy substation, located on the dam that was actually leveled.
Debris began accumulating there on Sunday after abnormally high levels of rain. He left the century-old dam “in condition of imminent failure,” officials said.
As of 10:36 a.m. Monday, the river had eroded the land around the west side of the dam near Mankato’s south side to the point where water was cascading over the concrete, with accumulated flooding now endangering to the city of 45,140 inhabitants.
In an alert issued Monday as images showed parts of the dam in ruins, Blue Earth County Emergency Management stated: “We do not know if it will fail completely or if it will remain in place.”
“However,” the agency added, “we determined that it was necessary to issue this notice to inform downstream residents and the appropriate regulatory and other local agencies.”
Spectators can see damage to the Rapidan Dam in Rapidan on Monday
In an alert issued Monday as images showed parts of the dam in ruins, Blue Earth County Emergency Management stated, “We do not know if it will fail completely or if it will remain in place.”
Meanwhile, debris dislodged by the torrent of water continues to fall downstream as power outages have also been reported in surrounding areas.
Among the debris currently being sent downstream are pieces of county infrastructure, officials said.
In its own statement, the National Weather Service described how the failure will cause the portion of the river that runs through Mankato to peak just below major flood status Tuesday morning.
Citizens in the lower-lying areas of the Minnesota River Valley have been told to evacuate, as officials continue to monitor whether the Rapidan Dam will completely give way.
An Xcel Energy substation was reduced to rubble and devastated by the flood
Twenty other cities, such as Fairmont, are also in the flash flood radius, as the water has already washed away a large portion of the dam, raising questions for years about its structural integrity.
Gov. Tim Walz and state emergency response officials cited that scrutiny in issuing their own statement Monday morning, as nearby roads are in danger of overflowing.
“I know the structural integrity of the dam has been an issue for a long time,” Governor Walz said of the old structure, built in 1910 by Ambersen Hydraulic Construction Company.
The Rapidan Dam was built between 1908 and 1910. It is 87 feet high and 475 feet long and is made entirely of concrete.
Officials are currently implementing the initial stages outlined in the Rapidan Dam Emergency Action Plan, a guide that outlines how to respond to such a failure and help potentially affected people who are left in the background.