“I know I'm not telling the folks of Hastings anything new, you are in competent hands,” explained Gov. Walz. “River people know what the river does. They know to watch it as homeowners. They know what it takes. They understand what it means to be safe, and I think it's important to note that there is a playbook if you will, on how to handle this. You see it being executed here already.””

Friday, April 14th, Governor Tim Walz paid a visit to the Hastings riverfront to discuss flood preparedness and how the State of Minnesota is at the ready to help communities in need due to rapidly rising waters along the Mississippi and other bodies of water. The help he mentioned is both financially, with the recently approved $40 million dollar state level emergency fund, as well as physically with the MN National Guard being ready to deploy if that call is made.

Gov. Walz met the entourage of State, County and City officials at Hastings City Hall in the early morning hours. Representative Shane Hudella, Senator Judy Seeberger, County Commissioner Mike Slavik, Acting Mayor Jen Fox, Council Member Angie Haus, City Administrator Dan Wietecha, Assistant City Administrator Kelly Murtaugh, Public Works Director Ryan Stempski along with a couple Dakota County Deputies, other staff and members of the local media were in attendance to hear what Gov. Walz had to say.

The group stayed at City Hall for a few minutes chatting before taking the half mile trek through downtown to the river front. During the walk, Fox and Haus spent time chatting with Gov. Walz about the downtown area and how it was high enough above the water level to not be affected unless there was a once in a lifetime flood event.

To put this in perspective, First Street East, the road under the bridge, at its lowest point is roughly 682 feet above sea level. The parking lot for Levee Park is 695 feet above sea level.  For First Street East to flood under the bridge, the river needs to raise around 15 and a half feet. That means the river would need to surpass the 1965 flood record of 25.9 feet and hit the 29-foot mark to flood the parking lot and begin to flood the lowest parts of Second Street. That might even be deemed a once in a millennia event if it were to ever happen. Thankfully, Hastings residents won’t see even close to that with the river expected to peak around 19.1 feet sometime Tuesday or Wednesday.

Once at the riverfront, the group took a few moments to discuss the magnitude of the 1965 flood and the 25.9 feet of water. The historical markers are a great reminder of how powerless the residents must have felt during that flood. This pause started the conversations around how the city prepares for a flood.

“We're starting to get some preparation done,” explained Stempski. “You'll see the cones on our light poles. We pulled all the light poles off, and we've kept the circuit off just to keep everything safe down here. On your way out, you might see some of our road closure signs. First Street, that's our way to East Hastings. Well, it's kind of complicated, we've got two access points in, and First Street will flood just down here by the railroad bridge. So, Second Street becomes our only access and we've got a rail line as you can see that we've got to coordinate with our emergency services. If the train is stuck there staging, we have to get the train out of the way so we can get in.”

“Well, we know about flooding and unfortunately, you’re battle tested, so you know what to do,” replied Gov. Walz. “You pull out the books, and what is really interesting is you watch for the steps to go through. The light poles come down and you'll just keep stepping up as it goes further along. I think for residents, they do the same thing with their houses, when it's time to start sandbagging and when they do the things they do. The biggest thing is making sure that all those resources are there so you can do it. Making sure you're getting the proper data. It's so surprisingly accurate to me what they can do at the corps and the weather service, what they do with their rain gauges and their river gauges to be able to give you good predictions.”

The city is ready for anyone that needs help. They have 25,000 sandbags ready to distribute, they have made arrangements with Branchline Church to use their parking lot as a staging area and a sandbag prep area.

The group moved back to the Rotary Pavilion to get in front of the slew of news cameras that follow the Governor’s every move. Acting Mayor Fox kicked off the press conference thanking Gov. Walz for coming and briefly discussing the preparations Hastings has already made. The most interesting piece of Fox’s introduction shows just how quickly the river forecast can change. The latest number she had heard just a day or two prior was that the Mississippi River was going to crest at 17.5 feet. Stempski gave her the new forecast of 18.5 feet as of Friday, and as of Monday, the projected crest was to be 19.5 feet around Wednesday or Thursday.

“I know I'm not telling the folks of Hastings anything new, you are in competent hands,” explained Gov. Walz. “River people know what the river does. They know to watch it as homeowners. They know what it takes. They understand what it means to be safe, and I think it's important to note that there is a playbook if you will, on how to handle this. You see it being executed here already.”

“We had a heavy wet snowpack this year,” Gov. Walz continued. “We had a briefing yesterday statewide. This is not going to be a case that is moderate. We're going to have some pretty severe flooding in different parts of Minnesota more than likely again. We can catch some breaks hopefully, hopefully we miss the rain this weekend. But hope is not a plan. A plan is to be prepared. This community has that plan. This community is ready to execute it, they will pull it out, they will move through the steps, and I think it's really important what acting Mayor Fox said, is things are going to be open here but just be careful. I think one of the things we see now, rivers are really high. We've already had a couple accidents this spring with folks in the rivers. We had DNR have to rescue a few folks, even folks who are seasoned on the river. It can become really dangerous fast. And I can't stress this enough. Unfortunately, we have had this happen. If there are barricades up closing streets, don't drive around them.”

Gov. Walz then began to speak on the Minnesota Legislatures passing of an emergency response bill that will help Minnesotans in need of emergency assistance due to flooding. The bill passed with bipartisan support to allow the spending of up to $40 million dollars from a fund that the state has for emergency situations. The state created this fund to fill in the gap created by the high dollar requirements of funds from FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency. According to Gov. Walz, to receive funding through FEMA takes a lot of damage and many times the flooding we are about to see is not anywhere close to the levels that FEMA would step in at.

Gov. Walz then invited Senator Seeberger and Representative Hudella to speak and they reiterated the need to watch the flood waters from a safe distance and they spoke a little on how proud they were to pass the bipartisan emergency fund for use around the state. They also complimented the city staff on their preparedness and urged folks to keep an eye on local media for any sudden changes.

The press conference portion wrapped up and the group stayed around chatting for a little while and when Gov. Walz made his way to Acting Mayor Fox, I was given the opportunity to ask about the far end of East Fourth Street. The situation was explained that the Corp of Engineers and the DNR put a stop to the raising of about 600 feet of roadway because of it being in a flood plain. Gov. Walz looked at Acting Mayor Fox and told her to email him the details of the situation and he will have some conversations to see if he can help open the door for a future road improvement.