Photo by Jenny Kirk The water hazard got a little out of control at the Slayton Country Club golf course due to heavy rains recently.

MURRAY COUNTY – Residents in the Slayton, Currie and Lake Shetek areas are suffering the aftermath of heavy rains this past week and a half. Countless basements, docks, fields and other properties have been flooded and more rain was expected Monday evening.

Ardy and Don Tamburro split their time between living on Lake Shetek and in Los Angeles, California.

“We’ve gotten more rain in three days here than we did in two years in California,” Ardy Tamburro said.

Don Tamburro estimates that they’ve gotten about 14 inches of rain in less than three weeks.

“We got 3 inches in the last three days,” he said. “We got 5 inches the week before that and then 5 inches before that. So the lake is really high.”

While the Tamburros have only lived on the east side of Lake Shetek for four years, they said this is the highest they’ve seen the lake.

“The end of the dock to the water is usually 3 feet,” Don Tamburro said. “Now it’s over the dock, so that’s more than 3 feet — and that just happened (Monday).”

Tamburro had to get up at 1 a.m. and adjust the boat ties.

“We could hear our little boat going, ‘clunk, clunk, clunk,’ so Don got up and tied it tighter,” Ardy Tamburro said. “Then he helped get the neighbor’s dock out (Monday morning).”

Jo and Dan Schak live next door and were also affected by the rising water.

“We had tied all the (dock) panels down (Sunday night), but they still broke the zip ties,” Jo Schak said. “They broke off. They’re aluminum, so they sank. We lost four of them. We tried to poke down in the water, but it’s just so deep that you can’t poke them.”

Schak said they plan to put their dock back out when the water level goes down.

“I’ve heard people saying that a lot of fields are flooded, and this time of the year, it’s bad for them,” Jo Schak said. “We can put up with this.”

Lake Shetek currently has a no wake zone, so the neighbors are wondering what the Fourth of July will be like.

“We fish off the dock sometimes and we usually have the boat out, but not now,” Schak said. “A lot of other people are taking their stuff off, too. But who knows? It could do down quickly.”

While any activity on the swollen lake would likely cause more water to leak further onto properties, it could also be dangerous.

“You don’t really want to be out there ripping around because if you look, there are boards, logs and other things out there,” Schak said.

Ardy Tamburro added that there’s “probably a lot of stuff just under the surface, too.”

The neighbors are especially keeping their fingers crossed that the lake will go down because the young couple next door is planning to get married on the dock in about three weeks.

“All of our docks are under water and if it doesn’t drop fast, I don’t know what those kids will do,” Tamburro said. “They plan to get married on their dock July 21.”

Slayton Police Officer Jesse Hoffmann said he’s heard about and witness a lot of flooding stories the past week or so.

“Marshall brought those pumps for the manholes,” he said. “I know they brought a couple down to help relieve the pressure because it’s backing up everybody’s basements. And in Currie, I know a lot of people have been having basement issues. I think they had issues with the first round of rain and this second one didn’t help any.”

Hoffman said he’s pretty sure his brother is the only person on one block in Slayton that doesn’t have basement issues right now.

“I’m fortunate to not have any issues either,” he said. “But a lot of others have had problems. It doesn’t help that the ground is already saturated, so there’s nowhere for the rain to go. I also heard that there was regular street flooding (Sunday night), too, but it didn’t take too long to subside.”

Employees at Bomgaars (farm and ranch supplies store) in Slayton have heard a lot of the horror stories regarding basement flooding.

“We’ve been selling sump pumps, hoses, shop vacs, dehumidifiers and fans like crazy because basements are flooding everywhere around here,” Angie Olivier said. “The whole surrounding community is having flooding issues.”

Olivier said a lot of people had 4-6 feet of water or sewer water in their basements.

“You’re talking walls, carpet, furniture if it’s finished and there’s probably a hot water heater down there and possibly appliances like freezers,” she said.

Olivier said she heard people saying they got overnight rain totals of between 3-3 ½ inches.

“We have lots of flooding around our area, so all the rivers, lakes and streams are all swollen,” Olivier said. “The golf course is terrible and there was a spot on Highway 59 that was under water. There was also an area by Pete’s Corner, on the backroad to Currie and a low spot before Hadley that were all under water.”

Bomgaars supervisor Kevin Ragan said he’s heard rain totals of between 15 and 18 inches for the last week and a half.

“My mom has 3 feet of water in her basement,” Ragan said. “The sump pump is constantly going.”

Bomgaars representatives estimate that “between 40-50 sump pumps, about 25 dehumidifiers and who knows how many hose kits” have been purchased recently. In fact, they’ve had to reach out and then travel to other stores around the state and region to help re-stock sold-out items.

“And, we’re out of a lot of items again,” Ragan said. “The city actually has a big water pump going into the drainage system, pumping it out because it’s backing up into people sewers — that’s how bad it is.”

Ragan said Lake Shetek is flooded and that the Currie dam is actually going back into the lake because of the flooding. But things could always be worse.

“One of our stores in Rock Valley, Iowa, is flooded,” he said. “They’re advising no travel there.”