One year anniversary of Spearfish Flood

RAPID CITY, S.D. (KEVN) - On June 23, 2023 Spearfish experienced an extreme rainstorm, resulting in flooding, washing out roads, and filling homes and apartments with water.

CONTEXT: Flooding hits Black Hills, forcing tenants to leave homes.

“It was such a terrible event on June 23rd, 2023, but the community really rallied together. There were a lot of people willing to volunteer to help those who were in need, and we had a lot of basement flooding, and we had some apartments that were for senior living that got flooded, but there was a lot of attention and care given to those people, and we were trying to help out the best we could,” said Spearfish Mayor, John Senden.

Senden highlighted the collaboration between the city and the Red Cross to help find alternate shelters for people whose homes were destroyed. Despite the distress of the flood, he appreciated the way his community came together to support one another.

“One of the things you really need to be prepared for is how you’re going to bring your team together and how you’re going to take care of public needs, and just going through that, that’s the only time I’ve been through that. It does really allow you to be focused on emergency management and just wanting to be able to care for people, but the big thing that I learned was through that process, just being able to communicate out in the community and watch the people respond and come to help their neighbors,” said Senden.

Looking ahead, Senden emphasized the city’s commitment to improving water flow to prevent these types of disasters from occurring again.

“As we do our planning in the future, keeping things in mind like this flood event in June of 2023, it’s very important that we address those issues to the best of our ability, and neighbors are just agreeing to work together to protect their property and their neighbor’s property as they do their planning together,” said Senden.

Senden says the unity of the City of Spearfish over the past year highlights the strength of his community.

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