SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO) — It’s been about a month since the devastating floods changed so many lives; especially around McCook Lake in North Sioux City.
While there’s been plenty of debris to cleanup around McCook Lake due to days of heavy rainfall back in June, some farmers in that area also have their own cleanup and it’s costing them time and money.
This is not your typical controlled burn.
About a mile from McCook Lake, the Rubida’s farm fields and many others were inundated by corn stalks and other debris following the floods.
They had no choice but to rake as much off the ground as possible and burn the rest.
“In order to replant next year, because we’ve lost everything this year, we have to clean the ground off, clean all the stalks off to even disc or cultivate or plant or anything,” Kathy Rubida said.
The American Red Cross has been here for weeks. Last week the agency was finally able to close its last shelter.
“We had 509 people at one point in 11 shelters,” Kathy Webster with the American Red Cross said.
Webster says 400 volunteers have been here helping people recover from the floods.
“What we are doing now is focusing on outreach assuring those people who have been impacted in all the areas that we’ve been able to damage assessments that we are now able to get financial assistance or resources that they may need in their hands,” Webster said.
Webster says she has responded to numerous natural disasters during her time with the Red Cross, but seeing the damage here and personally talking with people who have been impacted, hits home.
“I may have seen it a million times, but this is somebody’s first time going through it so I think it’s important to reach them on that level and it reminds me, wow, these are people who are impacted greatly and my piece of help is very little, but it makes me feel really good knowing that we are out here doing good work to help these folks,” Webster said.
