The river carved out a new path for itself around the Rapidan Dam, and an Xcel Energy substation and a park storage building have also plunged into the waters.
MANKATO, Minnesota — A portion of the home closest to the Rapidan Dam tumbled into the serving Blue Earth River Tuesday evening.
Team members from county public works, emergency management and the Blue Earth County Sheriff’s Office are monitoring for downstream impacts. County officials said they will provide more details on Wednesday morning. County Engineer and Public Works Director Ryan Thilges met with reporters near the dam on the Blue Earth River to give a status update on the incident, which involved a partial failure of the west abutment. This was due to heavy water flow from recent heavy rains and a buildup of logs and debris on the dam gates.
Thilges said there is a bit of good news in that water flows over the dam have dropped slightly from 34,800 cubic feet per second Monday to 33,000 cfs Tuesday morning, signaling that the situation may be improving. The flows measured Monday make this incident the second-worst in Rapidan Dam history, behind the flood of 1965 that disabled the dam for 10 years. Maximum flow during that incident was measured at 43,100 csf, a happening Thilges referred to as a"500-year event.
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