NORTH SIOUX CITY, S.D. (KELO) – Clean-up efforts have been non-stop since the devastating flood in June hit McCook Lake in North Sioux City.
With the holiday weekend coming up, one local non-profit is hosting a clean-up event this weekend on McCook Lake’s island.
Sunday will mark 10 weeks since the McCook Lake community experienced flooding like never before.
“It went from warning thinking nothing’s going to happen and it’s just an inconvenience to kind of life-changing, I would say,” Dennis Johnson, who lives on McCook Lake said.
Johnson’s house on Northshore Drive was deemed a total loss.
This is his first time being on the island across from his home since the flood.
“I think I’m getting immune to it, to be honest with you, because the destruction was so bad on Northshore Drive. This is bad. But honestly, we’ve seen so much on North Shore. We were in the nucleus of it,” Johnson said.
Earlier this week Renae Hansen, the caretaker at McCook Lake Izaak Walton League, came up with the idea of a clean-up event.
“My favorite place the island is a mess and now we need help. We need a lot of help to get it cleaned up,” Hansen said. “There’s 476 acres on this peninsula that we call the island. And the whole outer edge has to be walked because the whole outer edge has debris.”
And you never know what you’ll find.
During one of those walks on the island, Hansen found something that looked like trash.
“It was a Zip-Loc bag that had big holes in it, and it was full of small jewelry boxes,” Hansen said.
Hansen posted something online, but the owner didn’t come forward right away.
“I saw the Facebook post and it was so unrecognizable. I didn’t even know what it was until, you know, she told my sister what was in the bag,” Jill Lindgren, Amy McDonald’s sister said.
After watching her sister Amy lose so much, Lindgren says this bag of jewelry meant the world to their family.
“It doesn’t mean anything to anybody else. It’s just trash. But to us it was, it was one of the few things that we really wanted back. And by the grace of God, we got it,” Lindgren said.
“That was the most important thing I have done through this whole thing was figuring out who that jewelry belonged to, because obviously there may not be any value to you or me, but to that family, that was everything,” Hansen said.
This weekend, volunteers will have the opportunity to recover something that will bring a little joy to someone still dealing with the aftermath of the devastating flood.
“When you lose everything when you have nothing left, the one bag of crayons or a Christmas ornament or a stuffed animal that’s covered in mud. If it’s all you have, it’s very important,” Lindgren said.
The three-day clean-up event starts Saturday and goes until Monday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
For more information on the McCook Lake Izaak Walton League click here.
