Grams praises mayors, flood volunteers before Legislature
By John Sundvor
The Forum
ST. PAUL – U.S. Sen. Rod Grams used his first address to a joint session of the Minnesota Legislature Monday to praise mayors and volunteers who fought a spring of floods.

Grams, a Republican, was accompanied to the Capitol by officials from seven cities damaged by floodwaters: Moorhead Vice Mayor Millie MacLeod, Ada Mayor Russell Onstad, Breckenridge Mayor Kal Michels, Crookston Mayor Donald Osborne, East Grand Forks Mayor Lynn Stauss, Granite Falls Mayor David Smiglewski, and Montevideo Mayor Jim Curtiss.

The city officials met for about an hour with Gov. Arne Carlson, who assured them the state is working on plans to help their cities recover from devastating floods in the Red and Minnesota River valleys. He said the state is considering a plan to offer homeowners and businessmen in the flood areas loans at below-market interest rates.

Grams, meanwhile, said he has introduced legislation making it easier for flood victims to restructure their loans.

The bill is a copy of legislation he pushed through Congress in the wake of the 1993 floods. The program worked then and should work now, he said.

Mayors such as Stauss, whose city was swamped by the flood-choked Red River, and Smiglewski left the meeting thanking the Minnesota National Guard and volunteers. The mayors said their cities would bounce back from the disaster.

Smiglewski said volunteers are returning to Granite Falls to help residents clean up the mess left by the Minnesota River.

"It is nearly mind boggling. They are coming from all over the state," Smiglewski said. "We just have to say thank you."

Stauss said he is "humbled," not only by Minnesotans turning out to help Minnesotans, but by the offers of help that have come from throughout the United States.

"I thank you for the love you have shown our community," he said.

Amid the expressions of gratitude were vows that the future in the flood-prone areas would be different.

Michels said Breckenridge is staking its future on recommendations from the Army Corps of Engineers and the newly formed Red River Basin Board, a water-management board made up of North Dakotans, Minnesotans and Manitobans. Everyone in the basin must begin working together, Michels said, "so these 100-year floods don't happen every year."

MacLeod said the Red River Basin communities will never be able to prevent flooding. But with cooperation, she said, they should do a better job of controlling it.

"Everybody is going to have to give a little, the environmentalists as well as the states and the Canadian government," she said.

Before the House and Senate, Grams made it clear that he was moved by the campaign to save Minnesota towns from the rivers.

"If I had not seen it for myself, I would not have believed a pair of raging rivers could produce so much destruction," he said.

The flood costs will be enormous, Grams said. Financial costs will run well over $1 billion, he said.

Added to that, he said, are the "emotional and personal costs to our fellow Minnesotans, many of whom have watched their homes, farms, businesses and possessions literally wash away."

Grams said it is appropriate for the seven city officials to accompany him to the Capitol.

They "know all too well the struggle it has taken to fight the floods," he said. "They are representatives of some of the towns that have suffered some of the worst damage, and they deserve our appreciation for guiding our communities through this nightmare."