Flooding Closes Teepeetonka Park in Faribault Again

I was on my way back from Kenyon on Thursday night, where I was tracking down more information about the Held Bus Service garage fire, when I received a phone call from Faribault Fire Chief Dusty Dienst.

Dienst is also Faribault's emergency management director, and he wanted to inform me that Teepeetonka Park was being closed due to high water.

The Faribault fire chief will join us live during one of our Friday morning newscasts so he can give up-to-the-minute information on the situation.

Faribault didn't get the amounts of rain other areas did during the Wednesday night and Thursday morning storms, but that still means trouble for Teepeetonka. South of Faribault they received nearly double the precipitation in some areas, and that adds to the watershed woes.

It seems every year Teepeetonka suffers from some flooding.

In 2014, there was flooding that caused damage to the fencing in the park and the Little League fields. I recall Faribault officials asked the Federal Emergency Management Agency if they could move the fields to higher ground. The reply from FEMA was no. It must be back to the original condition, nothing new.

The Faribault emergency management director's main concern is safety. Closing the park means nobody should be going there. Dienst also wants people who may use the river recreationally to canoe or kayak to stay off the water also, saying it's really moving and dangerous.

Dienst emailed me this photo of the park about 5:30PM Thursday.

The park was under more water and still rising when I got to town, but it was too dark to get a good picture.

The other picture is a park just outside the west border of Kenyon. Yes, that's a picnic table.