Damages remain visible in the McCook Lake community on July 3, 2024, after a massive flood hit the area on June 23. (Joshua Haiar/South Dakota Searchlight)

When a record-high surge of water flowed down the Big Sioux River toward the southeast corner of South Dakota last month, local and state authorities activated a flood mitigation plan from 1976.

It saved North Sioux City and Dakota Dunes from disaster. But their neighbors in McCook Lake suffered a graphic reminder of how different their community is today than it was 48 years ago.

“Back when there were a few little cabins on the lake that you could replace for $20 apiece, and now there are little McMansions,” said Jay Gilbertson, geologist and manager of the East Dakota Water Development District, based in Brookings. 

‘We have nothing’: Flood victims say government failures continue after botched flood warning

He said it’s time for an update.

“Most definitely. The idea that a plan drawn up back then would still be applied today is kind of silly.”

Utilizing the existing plan, local and state authorities plugged the area under an Interstate 29 overpass with a sandbag-and-clay levee, to tie in with permanent levees that protect North Sioux City. The system diverted water toward McCook Lake, as intended.

But there was more water than anybody had ever seen before. Instead of causing a manageable rise in the lake, floodwaters slammed into dozens of homes, destroying around 30 of them and carving giant gouges in the land on the lake’s north shore. Fortunately, nobody was killed.

Union County Emergency Management Director Jason Westcott said officials thought the plan would work as it had in the past. Now he says something needs to change.

“We’re having a bad flood every four or five years,” he said. “Our rivers are changing and us humans are doing something to them.”

Some researchers and scientists say the changes are due to a greater frequency of severe rainfall and shifts in land use. And they say mitigation plans have not kept up.

“There’s no question about it,” said Carter Johnson, distinguished professor emeritus of ecology at South Dakota State University. “Mitigation plans, building standards and regulations are based on the 20th century data, which made sense, but we’re changing.”

Mark Sweeney, an environmental science professor at the University of South Dakota, shares those concerns. 

“Flood mitigation plans should never be considered static,” Sweeney said. “River channels are in a constant state of change, meaning flood hazards are likely to change, especially over decades.”

The recent flooding began when three days of heavy rainfall inundated southeast South Dakota, southwest Minnesota and northwest Iowa. The McCook Lake community did not anticipate the volume of water that overwhelmed some of their homes on June 23, according to Dirk Lohry, president of the McCook Lake Association.

But in hindsight, the disaster looks like another step in a progression of more frequent, more severe floods affecting the area during the past 15 years.  

“I’m 1,000 years old,” Lohry said. “I have now lived through two once-every-500-year floods.”

A changing environment

Warning signs have been accumulating in recent years about changing river flows in eastern South Dakota.

A U.S. Geological Survey report found a 298% increase in streamflow for the James River near Scotland, for example. The report says increases are linked to higher precipitation, urban development, tile drains used under farm fields, and grassland-to-cropland conversion.

The report found “a hydrologically unique trend in the eastern Dakotas that is not being observed anywhere else in the conterminous United States.” 

“Specifically, streams in the eastern Dakotas have experienced the greatest increases in streamflow during the last 60 years in comparison to any other USGS gaged stream in the United States.”

When North Sioux City developed its flood mitigation plan almost five decades ago, the highest recorded flow rate of the Big Sioux River in the city was 77,500 cubic feet per second, according to a North Sioux City official who spoke during a July 1 city council meeting. The flow during the recent flooding overwhelmed stream gauges, reaching what some city officials estimated to be 170,000 cubic feet per second.

Severe floods across the Midwest are becoming more common, mostly due to a greater frequency of severe rainfall, said Jonathan Remo, a geologist at Southern Illinois University. He said the “once-every-500-year” title given to some floods is a probability based on historical data.

“But we’re now seeing an unprecedented frequency of major precipitation events,” Remo said. “Something has fundamentally changed, and it’s related, in part, to climate change.”

Around the globe, large amounts of heat-trapping greenhouse gases are being emitted into the atmosphere. Warmer air holds more moisture, which, when it condenses, results in more intense precipitation. 

The state climatologist at South Dakota State University, Laura Edwards, has been saying for years that South Dakota’s climate is becoming wetter during wet cycles and drier during dry cycles, translating to more severe droughts and floods.

Carter Johnson, also of SDSU, has studied climate change for decades and said, “We’re seeing changes at rates that have never been observed before.” 

He said South Dakota can fund better preparation and mitigation for natural disasters, or spend more on recovery.

“Taxpayers are paying for it either way,” he said. “Insurance rates will continue to go up, natural disasters will continue to happen, and emergency response and cleanup is not cheap.”

Land-use changes

USD’s Sweeney said climate change is the biggest concern for the future, but added that changes to the landscape, like urban sprawl, are also contributing to worsening floods. He said water that would normally soak into the ground like a sponge, slowing its flow rate, now hits asphalt and runs right off. 

“We have known for a long time that runoff from asphalt is faster than from grassland,” Sweeney said.

Drain tile — perforated pipe installed under cropland to drain excess moisture — is another factor. When drain tile systems are installed, water that would otherwise accumulate in a field before absorbing into the ground or evaporating is instead channeled into ditches, creeks and rivers.

“Personally, I think tile drains are a slow-motion experiment we are playing,” Sweeney said.

A 2014 study in Ohio found that tile drainage significantly contributed to the amount of water discharged in the watershed. In Iowa, 2016 research indicated that tile drainage significantly alters streamflow, contributing 30% more water to the observed streams during precipitation events.

Converting grasslands to cropland can also make flooding worse. 

Meghann Jarchow, a USD professor of sustainability and grassland specialist, referenced a study showing grassland holds more water than cropland, with or without cropland drainage systems. Prairies have a thick layer of plant material that soaks up rain, which leads to less water draining away.

“We’ve changed so many things in our environment,” she said. “Policies need to keep up.”

Between 2008 and 2016, nearly 5 million acres of grassland were converted to cropland across 12 Midwestern states – including South Dakota – primarily for corn and soybean production, according to a 2021 study. That’s the equivalent of about five Rhode Islands. 

Solutions

For the residents of McCook Lake, one priority is clear: They want assurance that their homes will not be “sacrificed” again.

“They’ve got to change that plan,” Dirk Lohry said.

McCook Lake residents called on North Sioux City officials to change the current mitigation plan during a July 1 meeting, suggesting a large ditch be built to direct water to nearby Mud Lake — which does not have a community surrounding it — rather than McCook Lake.

Jay Gilbertson thinks it’s time those “once-every-however-many years” estimates get updated, partly because of how those odds drive design standards for infrastructure like waste management systems and dams. 

“You might have to make a system able to handle a once every 50-year event based on historical records,” Gilbertson said. “But 50 might not be 50, it might be 30.”

He said those adjustments could help ensure dams and levees are being built for the environment of the 21st century and beyond, not the 20th. 

Federal agencies and state and local governments are all responsible for updating design standards to reflect current climate data.

Zoning laws could also be updated to illustrate flood zones more accurately, Gilbertson said, restricting development in high-risk areas, and ensuring adequate park and wetland space to help absorb floodwaters. 

In 2020, State Climatologist Laura Edwards wrote about increased flood risks in South Dakota, highlighting how many properties are at greater risk than currently indicated by Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) flood plain maps. Multiple McCook Lake residents told South Dakota Searchlight they do not have flood insurance, because of the expense and because they’re not in an area designated by FEMA as requiring it.

Sweeney said the accuracy of flood plain maps is critical, as are local government decisions about what development, if any, is allowed.

“We will never be able to eliminate flood hazards as long as the government allows people to build in flood plains,” Sweeney said.

The first case of measles in South Dakota in nine years was reported Thursday by the state Department of Health.

Measles is a highly contagious viral disease that can cause health complications, especially in children younger than 5 years old.

The case was found in a Pennington County adult who traveled internationally and tested positive at Monument Health in Rapid City this month. The patient could have exposed people at the Black Hills Urgent Care from 10 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. on July 9 and the Monument Health Rapid City Emergency Department waiting room from 5 p.m. to 12 a.m. on July 12, the Department of Health said.

“Measles is a highly contagious viral disease and spreads through the air when an infected individual coughs or sneezes,” said Dr. Joshua Clayton, state epidemiologist, in a news release Thursday. “Individuals who have not been fully immunized with two doses of measles vaccine have an increased risk of infection if they have contact with an infected person.”

The measles vaccine is typically given to children between 12 and 15 months old, with the second dose given at 4 to 6 years old. Two measles shots usually produce lifelong immunity, according to the news release.

The last time a measles case was reported in South Dakota was in January 2015, when there was an outbreak of 13 cases in the Mitchell area and one case in an unvaccinated Sioux Falls 10-year-old.

Aside from an unvaccinated child younger than 5 years old contracting measles in Mitchell in December 2014, South Dakota hadn’t had a measles case since 1997.

Measles appears in two stages. First, the patient may have a runny nose, cough, slight fever and reddened eyes sensitive to light. Second, on the third to seventh day, the patient has a temperature of 103-105 degrees Fahrenheit and a red, blotchy rash beginning on their face and spreading across their body. The rash lasts up to a week.

Measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccination rates have been on the decline in the United States for over a decade after the disease was declared eliminated in 2000. More than 160 cases have been reported nationwide so far in 2024, with 53% of cases hospitalized. Over 60% of cases in children younger than 5 years old have been hospitalized so far this year.

South Dakota’s MMR vaccination rate among kindergarteners decreased from 96.8% during the 2009-2010 school year to 92.5% during the 2022-2023 school year, according to the Centers for Disease Control. That is below the Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion’s goal of 95%, which establishes herd immunity.

Children entering school or an early childhood program in South Dakota must have received, or be in the process of receiving, two doses of the MMR vaccine and some other vaccines. Exemptions are available if a licensed physician says it would endanger the child’s life or health, or if the child’s religious doctrine opposes immunization.

MILWAUKEE — Donald Trump in an unusual speech accepting the GOP presidential nomination Thursday at the fourth and final night of the Republican National Convention gave a detailed account about the attempt on his life last weekend when a gunman shot at him during a campaign rally in Pennsylvania.

“I will tell you exactly what happened. And you’ll never hear it from me a second time because it’s actually too painful to tell,” Trump said in his first public remarks about the shooting that killed one rally goer and injured two others. The gunman was killed by law enforcement at the scene.

Turning his head to look at a chart, which was later displayed on multiple screens inside the Fiserv Forum, is what saved his life, Trump said.

“I heard a loud whizzing sound and felt something hit me really, really hard on my right ear,” Trump recalled. “I said to myself, ‘Wow, what was that? It can only be a bullet.’ I moved my hand to my right ear, brought it down, and my hand was covered with blood.”

Trump said he knew immediately that he was “under attack” and praised the Secret Service agents for rushing on stage to shield him with their own bodies, calling them “great people” who took “great risk,” to applause from the crowd.

He thanked the supporters in attendance last weekend for not panicking and stampeding, which can cause injuries and deaths during a mass shooting.

Trump in his 90-minute remarks appeared to seriously reflect on how close he came to being killed at one point, commenting that he wasn’t sure he was meant to survive the attack.

“I’m not supposed to be here tonight,” Trump said, before the crowd began chanting, “Yes, you are!”

“I stand before you in this arena only by the grace of Almighty God,” he added.

Republicans’ bestowal of the nomination on Trump at the finale of their convention is significant in that he becomes the first convicted felon to accept a major political party’s presidential nod. Trump still faces charges in multiple criminal cases after one of the cases was dropped earlier this week.

Divine intervention seen

Trump’s comments about being saved by God followed days of politicians from throughout the country claiming the bullet only grazing his ear was an act of divine intervention.

Pastor Lorenzo Sewell, from Detroit, said earlier in the night that people “can’t deny the power of God” in Trump’s life.

“You can’t deny that God protected him, you cannot deny that it was a millimeter miracle that was able to save this man’s life,” Sewell said. “Could it be that Jesus Christ preserved him for such a time as this?”

“Could it be that the King of Glory, the Lord God, strong and mighty, the God who is mighty in battle, protected Donald Trump, because he wants to use him for such a time as this?” Sewell added.

J.D. Vance pitches for swing-state votes in accepting Trump VP nomination

Tucker Carlson, former Fox News television personality and conservative pundit, said that “a lot of people” are wondering what’s going on following the shooting on Saturday.

“Something bigger is going on here. I think people who don’t even believe in God are starting to think, ‘Well, maybe there’s something to this,’” Carlson said. “And I’m starting to think it’s going to be okay, actually.”

Trump wore a white bandage on his right ear concealing the wound he received last Saturday before Secret Service agents rushed to shield him from bullets.

Trump spoke about Corey Comperatore, a former fire chief attending the rally with his family, who was killed in the shooting as well as the two people who were injured.

Trump called Comperatore a “highly respected” fire chief before walking over to his fire jacket and helmet, which had been placed on the stage, and kissing the helmet in a solemn moment.

Trump said he spoke with Comperatore’s wife as well as the two injured people earlier in the day, who were doing “very well” in recovering from their injuries. The convention then observed a moment of silence for Comperatore.

GOP seeks unity as Democrats debate Biden’s fate

The Republican National Convention and Trump’s acceptance speech provided a prime opportunity for the GOP to show unity as Democrats increasingly questioned whether President Joe Biden should formally become their nominee in the weeks ahead.

Trump repeatedly criticized Democrats’ policies and said they were a threat to the country’s future, though he only mentioned Biden once, saying the damage the current president could inflict on the country is “unthinkable.”

“If you took the 10 worst presidents in the history of the United States… and added them up, they will not have done the damage that Biden has done,” Trump said.

Voters, he said, must “rescue our nation from failed and even incompetent leadership” by voting for him and Republicans during November’s election.

“This will be the most important election in the history of our country,” Trump said.

‘The stakes have never been higher,’ Biden campaign says

Biden-Harris Campaign Chair Jen O’Malley Dillon released a written statement rebuking Trump’s speech, saying he “rambled on for well over an hour.”

“He failed to mention how he had inflicted pain and cruelty on the women of America by overturning Roe v Wade. He failed to mention his plan to take over the civil service and to pardon the January 6th insurrectionists,” Dillon wrote.

Biden, on the other hand, is “running for an America where we defend democracy, not diminish it,” she wrote.

“The stakes have never been higher,” Dillon wrote. “The choice has never been more clear. President Biden is more determined than ever to defeat Donald Trump and his Project 2025 agenda in November.”

DNC Chair Jaime Harrison said in a written statement that in “Trump’s Republican Party, there’s only space for unquestioning loyalists who will put him above our democracy, above our freedoms, and above working families.”

“Over the past four days, we’ve seen speakers endorse a far-right, dangerous vision that would see Americans’ basic liberties stripped away and replace the rule of law with the rule of Trump,” Harrison wrote. “No amount of desperate spin can change how unpopular and out of touch their disastrous plans are for the American people.”

No stain left by Jan. 6

Trump’s speech solidified a significant turnaround for the former president, who earned rebukes from many of the party’s leaders following the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

The events of that day, which led to the deaths of police officers and ended the country’s centuries-long peaceful transition of power, would traditionally have been viewed as a black spot by the party that lauds itself as supporting “law and order” as well as the country’s founding principles.

Instead, Trump has succeeded in convincing his supporters that the people convicted for violent acts should be pardoned as “political prisoners” and the several court cases against him are about his politics and not his actions.

Top Trump campaign official Chris LaCivita refused to say earlier Thursday during an event near the RNC whether Trump would continue to campaign on the promise to pardon Jan. 6 defendants, or “hostages” as he has described them numerous times.

Trump said Thursday night that nothing would prevent him from becoming president following November’s election.

“Our resolve is unbroken and our purpose is unchanged — to deliver a government that serves the American people better than ever before,” Trump said.

“Nothing will stop me to this vision, because our vision is righteous and our cause is pure,” Trump added. “No matter what obstacle comes our way, we will not break, we will not bend, we will not back down and I will never stop fighting for you.”

Scenes from the 2024 Republican National Convention.

Trump’s loss of the popular vote and the Electoral College four years ago led him to make false claims about election fraud, which never bore fruit. Judges threw out numerous court challenges.

Trump faces federal felony charges that he conspired to create false slates of electors in seven states and attempted to obstruct the certification of the 2020 presidential election results.

That, however, hasn’t stopped Trump from repeating the claim and making it a hallmark of his third run for the Oval Office.

Trump reiterated many of those incorrect claims during his speech to applause and cheers from the crowd gathered inside Fiserv Forum.

“They used COVID to cheat,” he said.

Trump: ‘We must not criminalize dissent’

Despite his incessant encouragement of rally chants during the 2016 campaign to lock up former Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton, and a willingness to explore jailing his rivals if he wins in November, Trump said “we must not criminalize dissent or demonize political disagreement.”

In addition to the federal 2020 election subversion charges, Trump faces racketeering charges in Georgia, sentencing over a guilty verdict in New York, and federal charges over allegedly stealing and hiding classified government documents after leaving the Oval Office.

Federal District Judge Aileen Cannon on Monday dropped the classified documents case on the grounds that the government illegally appointed a special counsel to prosecute it. The Department of Justice has since appealed.

The former president reminded the crowd of the “major ruling that was handed down from a highly respected federal judge.”

“If the Democrats want to unify our country, they should drop these partisan witch hunts,” Trump said.

‘Stop wars with a telephone call’

Trump said the “planet is teetering on the edge of World War Three” and he will “end every single international crisis that the current administration has created.”

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 “would have never happened if I was president,” he said, repeating the same claim about the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas on Israel.

Trump ‘honored the Constitution,’ Noem says in convention speech

“I tell you this, we want our hostages back and they better be back,” Trump said later in the speech about Israeli-American hostages still in Hamas captivity.

Trump praised Victor Orbán — the Hungarian prime minister known for his authoritarian streak — which the crowd cheered. He also touted his friendship with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un.

He said the press criticized him for his congeniality with Kim, but “it’s nice to get along with someone who has a lot of nuclear weapons,” Trump said.

“I could stop wars with a telephone call,” Trump said, but immediately followed with a promise to “build an Iron Dome missile defense system to ensure that no enemy can strike our homeland.”

Trump’s ‘only crime’ is ‘loving America’

Speakers rallying the crowd before Trump’s appearance on Thursday exalted his golf game and business management style, and defended the former president, who they say supports them through long-established ties.

“To me, he is my friend,” Trump’s attorney Alina Habba said tearfully.

“Sham indictments and baseless allegations will not deter us, because the only crime President Trump has committed is loving America,” she said.

Trump’s 2020 election subversion case has sat in a holding pattern for months while he appealed his claim of presidential immunity to the U.S. Supreme Court. The justices returned the case to the trial court after issuing a 6-3 majority opinion in early July that grants broad immunity for former presidents’ official acts.

Trump was convicted of 34 felonies in New York state court for falsifying business records related to a hush money payment by his personal lawyer to a porn star ahead of the 2016 election.

However, the New York judge handling the case has delayed Trump’s sentencing while his lawyers challenge the case, arguing the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling opens questions about what evidence against a former sitting president can be admitted to court.

Pompeo says no Putin in Ukraine under Trump

Mike Pompeo, Trump’s former CIA director and secretary of State, blamed Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and deaths of its civilians on “weakness” of the Biden administration.

“Last week, we saw what it meant — that Children’s Hospital bombed, innocents killed — it did not have to be,” Pompeo said, referring to the July 8 Russian strike on the medical facility in Kyiv.

World leaders from NATO etched a path for Ukraine to join the alliance at the July summit in Washington, D.C, and pledged more resources for the nation that Russia further invaded in February 2022.

Trump has long criticized NATO, dismissing the post-WWII alliance’s core tenet that an attack against one is an attack against all and threatening to withdraw over funding.

In February he told a rally crowd in South Carolina that he would “encourage (Russia) to do whatever the hell they want” to “delinquent” member countries that do not pay 2% of their GDP on defense.

All members agreed to a 2% commitment in 2014, and 23 are on track to meet the target this year, according to the alliance.

On Wednesday night at the RNC, Trump’s running mate, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, echoed Trump’s words and declared “no more free rides for nations that betray the generosity of the American taxpayer.”

Lia Chien contributed to this report.