Canton residents lambaste mayor, commissioner for lack of emergency flooding response plan

Canton residents railed against their mayor and city commissioners in an hour-and-a-half heated, contentious and informal special meeting Monday night of the Canton City Commission about what the agenda listed as a “weather-related event and next steps.”

The town of about 3,000 was hit with heavy rainfall and floods from Thursday afternoon through Saturday as water filled creeks, tributaries and rivers in southeastern South Dakota, filling basements with water and sewage, and overworking wastewater treatment systems.

That forced residents to mobilize Thursday night and Friday, with little to no direction from the city administration. Dozens of volunteers filled sandbags, and about dozens more put those sandbags at homes around the town, yet their efforts didn't stop the deluge of water the following evening as more severe storms struck the area.

As of Tuesday afternoon, following three days of wastewater restrictions and only about a three-hour break Monday evening before the restrictions were reinstated, some are still getting sewage and water out of their homes and basements. Gov. Kristi Noem wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, on Tuesday that Canton received the most rain of anywhere in the state with more than 18 inches.

The high school parking lot has become a temporary dumping ground for garbage and debris. The school's wrestling team has been called to lift heavier items and clear piles from curbs for those in need, while others offered food and spare clothing at a few different locations throughout town to provide respite. At least one person offered to bring truck loads of residents to Beresford, 30 minutes south, to do laundry.

The situation drove dozens to speak about how they were affected by the flood and the lack of action from some of the commissioners, and the lack of an emergency plan for scenarios like this, after similar “weather-related events” occurred in 2014 and 2019.

More: Last flood of this magnitude was in 2019, but more heavy rain is on the way, NWS predicts

‘What the hell did we learn from 10 years ago? Nothing.’

Multiple residents lauded commissioners Paul Garbers and Kris York for their work volunteering to sandbag the town as it experienced the flood, and questioned why Mayor Sandi Lundstrom, commissioners Jackie Pigors and Tyler Larson and finance officer Kyle Cwach didn’t do more to help.

“There’s been a huge lack of leadership, and it’s sad,” Canton resident Jacob Tetrick said.

“It’s safe to say your community single handedly saved this town,” Canton resident Whitney Gard added.

Donald Hermanson added that if someone in town had been directing resources more efficiently and directed the sandbagging operation, “I think we could’ve prevented a lot more from happening.”

Clair Gard said the same volunteers, coaches and students who organized and filled sandbags in 2014 were the ones volunteering this year.

“What the hell did we learn from 10 years ago? Nothing. Why did it take so long to put the water restrictions on? You guys are in charge of that, not the volunteers. Is there a reason? Can anyone speak? Here’s our problem,” he said, smacking the podium.

Lundstrom said she’s 71 and can’t lift sandbags, to which an unnamed resident shouted out that she could’ve been “bossing people around” during the sandbag operation. Lundstrom also said that she didn’t know if “that’s in our pay scale,” and that residents were comparing the commission members with city workers. She also thanked the volunteers for all their work and said she didn’t know where the city would be without them.

More: Residents rush to put sandbags out as Canton sees first major flood in 10 years

Pigors said she was watching her child at the time, but that her husband helped with the sandbagging efforts as a volunteer. Cwach and Larson were silent for most of the meeting.

Garbers spoke the most of everyone on the board. At different times in the meeting, he said he’d received nearly four dozen calls from residents regarding city problems with the flood; said he has a house that’s “shot” and no longer liveable; talked broadly about the failure of past city planners and engineers that led to floods; and, said he was close to leaving the commission.

“If we don’t get a leader in this town, we ain’t going anywhere,” Garbers said. “I’ve thought since I started that we need an administrator. Two years ago (Lundstrom), when you ran for mayor, you said we didn’t need one for three to five years. When (Pigors) ran… (Pigors) said we needed one… when is three to five years up? I came on (the commission) to try to do what the citizens of Canton wanted us to do.”

Garbers said Lundstrom could’ve been out at Tri-State Ready Mix directing where sandbags went.

“We need an administrator in this town to get the s--t done,” Garbers said, to applause and an “Amen” from residents in the crowd at the meeting. “I am ready to be done (on the commission), because it sure ain’t worth the $2,000.”

‘We’ve been kicked in the nuts’

Harold Timmerman, Lincoln County Emergency Management coordinator, said early in the meeting before he left to go to a similar meeting in Lennox that he doesn’t know if there’s a way anyone could afford to prepare for something like this.

“If you were trying to build infrastructure to handle something like we just had, you couldn’t afford it,” he said. “I don’t know if it’s possible.”

Later in the meeting, Chris Krogmann, director of public works for Canton, said that the city has only had one pump since 2019 to help push sewer water through town and prevent the backup.

Prior to 2019, the city had three pumps used to handle the sewer system during the 2014 flood, but one was lost to that flood while another needed repairs, but was too old to fix. Pigors asked why the city didn’t try to get another pump at that time, and Krogmann said they cost $50,000.

“I don’t care! I just bought a $115,000 excavator!” York, who oversees utilities and the budget for the city’s water and sewer, yelled. “I’m not going to stop! These people have a reason to be upset!”

Krogmann said there has to be a budget to pay for these pumps, to which York responded that the excavator “sat there” at more than two times the cost of a pump, and that residents want to know why commissioners haven’t done anything for five years about the pump.

Shortly after this exchange, Parry Fossum questioned if the city had a natural disaster plan for situations like this, to which Lundstrom replied that as far as she could find out, such a plan wasn’t made after the 2014 flood.

“OK, so there is no plan. I’m looking at all of you guys in the whites of your eyes. We need one,” Fossum said. “If you’re going to say we don’t have money for it, I’ve got to call (bulls--t).”

“I don’t know how you can have a master plan against 20 inches of rain," Lundstrom replied.

Fossum replied that an emergency disaster plan is a playbook that puts into place, step by step, things that should happen in an event like this, like contacting the Red Cross, setting up shelters for displaced people and more.

“It’s time to buck up and get this plan in place,” Fossum said, suggesting that if the city doesn’t know how to plan for events like this, to get in contact with towns that have similar plans in place and learn from them. “It’s going to happen again. We know it’s going to happen again.”

Resident Eric Hohman said he liked Fossum’s idea to get a plan in place “when this thing is all said and done,” and he suggested the city should call in a state hydrologist or someone who understands a solution.

“We’ve been kicked in the nuts” by Mother Nature, he said. “This isn’t (Hurricane) Katrina. We don’t live in New Orleans. We aren’t looking for somebody to do our work for us, but we need help.”

Garbers said later in the meeting that the city needs to work on its infrastructure and set money aside for it.

Resident Teisha Hart said that she and her husband were able to budget for digging out a trench, tiling, drainage and sump pumps for the flood 10 years ago, so the city should be able to do that, too.

“If we as one couple, one house, has that in the budget… it could maybe work for a city that has a lot of people coming together, helping,” Hart said. “My next step is, unfortunately, I don’t want to stay in Canton anymore because I don't want to go through the stress.”

Action items from the meeting included that Garbers would call Canton School District Superintendent Russell Townsend and ask if the city could continue using the high school’s parking lot as a dumping ground for garbage from the flood; that residents can call the city to be put on a list of people who need help hauling garbage out; that an emergency disaster plan will be created; that water restrictions would remain in place; and, information on sending disaster evidence to FEMA would be published on the city’s app.

This article originally appeared on Sioux Falls Argus Leader: Canton residents rail against city's lack of response plan to flooding