According to the National Weather Service (NWS), a multi-day heavy rainfall event led to widespread heavy rain across the region. Rainfall totals over a three-day period exceeded two inches in nearly all areas, with widespread totals between five and 10 inches. Rain totals in pockets of southeastern South Dakota and northwest Iowa were between 10 and 20 inches — nearly a year’s worth of rainfall in that amount of time.

The NWS said these rainfall amounts exceeded the 500- to 1,000-year annual exceedance probability in some areas.

While many cities were impacted, more widespread flooding took place in the communities of Rock Rapids, Rock Valley, Hawarden, Spencer, Sioux Rapids and Cherokee in Iowa; Windom and Jackson in Minnesota, and Sioux Falls, Canton, and McCook Lake in South Dakota, according to the NWS.

Gov. Kim Reynolds issued a disaster declaration that weekend for 21 Iowa counties affected by the nearly unimaginable amount of flood water inundating those areas.

-Photo by Karen Schwaller
Much of northwest Iowa received nearly a year's worth of rainfall before 2024 was even half over, with approximately 11 inches falling in a short period of time in the month of June. That resulted in historic flooding, which devastated hard-hit Iowa communities like Rock Valley, Spencer, Sioux Rapids, Cherokee, Correctionville, Hawarden, and points further south. Here the water flows from the field and over the roadway.

Two especially hard-hit areas included Clay and Sioux counties, where frequent rain events brought river levels to the breaking point, creating levee failures and sending flood waters over their banks. They included (primarily) the Rock, Floyd and West Branch of the Floyd River in Sioux County, and the Little Sioux and Ocheyedan rivers near Spencer in Clay County, along with other contributing smaller rivers and creeks that were also deluged with rain waters.

Flood waters damaged or destroyed countless homes and businesses all over northwest Iowa, washed roads and bridges out and left farm land under water for days or weeks at a time. Reports of basements filled with water — some completely, with more water on the main floor — were common. Basement walls gave way under the pressure — some from home owners pumping water out of their basements too quickly.

Downtown and residential areas in both counties were flooded, with people evacuating, and otherwise being rescued from roof tops by boat and helicopter. Sewage systems backed up as well due to excessive flood water, and utilities were down for a time. Temporary large-group housing needed to be set up, and donation centers opened for people to give items or money for those who had lost so much — or everything.

Recovery efforts have been underway since then, and are ongoing eight months later.

Sioux County

-Photo by Karen Schwaller
Rain waters fell hard during the last week of June, leading up to historic flooding in the following days. This photo, taken southeast of Milford, shows water rushing over a gravel roadway and into a field last June.

Ag Picture

Joel Sikkema, Sioux County engineer, said damage in his county was widespread, with the heaviest in the northwest parts of Sioux County near Rock Valley.

“There were also substantial impacts in the northeast parts of the county and in areas east of Sioux Center and near Alton as well,” he said.

Sikkema said the damages to rural roads and bridges was extensive, but what has taken the most time to repair are scouring of bridge embankments (approaches to bridges).

“A lot of those bridge embankments, because of the amount and speed of the water, were washed away, so we had to get those put back into place,” he said.

-Photo by Karen Schwaller
Much of northwest Iowa received nearly a year's worth of rainfall before 2024 was even half over.

Sikkema said there are still two gravel road bridges near Rock Valley that are closed, with the likelihood that they will have to be replaced entirely instead of repaired.

Sikkema said the financial impact to the county budget for repairs has come in at $1.4 million.

“Looking ahead at some bridges and culverts that were severely damaged that need to be replaced, it could cost $1.5 to $2 million more,” he said, adding that the county could see reimbursements from the federal government amounting to 85 percent of costs the county incurs.

“Our crews hauled more than 4,000 loads of dirt to repair bridge embankments and road shoulders and bare ditches — it’s an immense figure,” he said. “There were 340 locations where we had to do debris removal or blade it or add gravel because water had either washed over the roads or damaged the shoulders.”

Sikkema said the county ran out of barricades and had to garner help from the farm community using round bales as barricades, as well as dumping loads of gravel to help close roads to keep people safe.

-Photo by Karen Schwaller
As the Okoboji chain lakes flow south toward the Little Sioux River that runs through Spencer, this photo (taken just south of Milford) shows how deep the water levels were in June as tributaries tried to empty out when everything is full beyond capacity.

He said one month brought the completion of much damage repair, mostly for more highly-traveled areas of Sioux County.

Sikkema said he was reminded of how powerful water can be.

“When you look at a bridge and normally there’s a little stream flowing through it, and then you come up to it and the roadway is totally gone … the bridge is still there, but the roadway is totally gone, and when you look down, the hole is 20 feet deep … it’s amazing the destruction that water can cause.”

Sioux County FSA

Teresa Van Sloten, executive director of the Farm Service Agency in Sioux County (based in Orange City), said flood damage there was more extensive than anticipated from the Rock River, Floyd River and Big Sioux River (on the western border).

-Photo by Karen Schwaller
Flood waters came rapidly and forcefully the weekend of June 22-23, creating this giant crater in a road bed just southwest of Milford. It appears the road bed simply gave way.

“The West Branch of the Floyd River that goes down the middle of the county was more extensive than we thought; we drove around and saw it, and heard reports that the water was more than 20 feet high on the West Branch going right down the middle of the county,” she said.

Van Sloten said she and her crew saw damage to pastures and cropland due in part to excessive sand that washed into those areas.

“Some guys might have 10 or 20 acres covered in sand maybe two feet high, and the field might not have any,” she said, “… but another field might have two acres covered in rock and debris. Some had holes in their field that were 12 feet deep. There was overturned irrigation equipment … just extensive crop land damage with gulleys and holes.”

She said she heard of places in the northern part of Sioux County that received 21 inches of rain that week.

“A lot of people got that sand and debris cleared off of their cropland in a hurry, but their struggle is finding a place to put it,” said Van Sloten. “Some farmers have 100 side dump trucks worth of sand that they don’t know what to do with because nobody wants it. A lot of waterways filled up with silt and were level with the field, so a lot of them had to scrape that out.”

Van Sloten said producers are looking at the Emergency Conservation Program (ECP) to help with expenses of restoring their ground to where it was before the flood. The funding might include minor grading and shaping to dig up waterways or fill in gulleys. It also helps pay for fence repair expense.

“A lot of guys have their pastures along a river or a waterway or creek and it all got wiped out or full of junk and it ruined their fences. ECP will help pay for some of that,” said Van Sloten, adding that ECP can also help with damaged crop land that needs a temporary cover crop in order to keep weeds down.

She said producers can also seek out the Emergency Livestock Indemnity Program if they lost livestock in the flood. The funds also helped a beekeeper whose hives floated away.

“Some producers couldn’t get to their hogs and maybe lost electricity; some died in the heat, and some cattle were washed away down the river,” said Van Sloten. “The stories are unbelievable.”

She said the Emergency Livestock Assistance Program (ELAP) has been needed by Sioux County producers who have had to fix pasture fences, have pulled their cattle off of pasture because there is no grass left, or their hay bales floated away. Those funds help pay for feed for the number of days they were off pasture.

“You don’t find livestock numbers like you find in Sioux County,” said Van Sloten. “We had a lot of applications for those two livestock programs.”

Van Sloten said FSA and NRCS staff traveled together the Monday after the flood, surveying crop land, pasture and livestock damages, and while she said it was difficult to find a comprehensive dollar amount for that, she said they came up with an initial figure of $25 million or more for total ag damages in Sioux County.

“It will be a long time before we’re done paying everybody for that (ECP) program,” she said, adding that some producers wanted to wait until spring to fully assess the damages they received, especially those who had CRP acres along the river. “We’ll be working on this program for another year or so yet.”

CLAY COUNTY

Cole Budach, Clay County engineer, said significant damage occurred on secondary roads there, especially in low places with culverts where water wants to drain naturally, and with gravel eroded away, and road sub-bases being washed away.

“We were able to build the gravel roads all back before the fall,” said Budach. “We saw a few paved roads that lost the asphalt, and some paved roads that lost the shoulder. Those have been restored now.”

He said damage to roads and bridges was consistent throughout the whole of Clay County, with no area seeming worse than another.

Budach said one heavily-damaged county bridge over the Little Sioux River in Southeast Clay County (Herdland Township) will not reopen. To date, that is the only Clay County rural bridge that will not be repaired or replaced.

Budach said some bridges had banks washed out adjacent to the bridges, and in the more severely-damaged areas, they have been backfilled with large rocks. Road beds that were washed away have been repaired in Clay County and southern Dickinson County.

He said all Clay County roads are back in service, but debris removal is still on the docket.

“Conservatively, we’re over 60 percent done with that (debris removal) — removing corn stalks, sediment, soil that ended up in a ditch, we’re cleaning that out and stockpiling it,” he said. “We’ll continue that once the ground thaws.”

Budach didn’t have a dollar figure for what repairs have cost Clay County’s road department, but he said once all figures are compiled, they’ll be turned in to FEMA, and the federal government will reimburse up to 75 percent of that cost for labor, materials and equipment cost. He said they will also receive an additional 10 percent reimbursement from Iowa Homeland Security (state).

Budach said his crews initially worked overtime hours in order to take care of those issues that were an immediate threat to public safety, and after that, have been working regular 40-hour weeks to continue flood recovery efforts and keep the roads open and safe.

CLAY COUNTY FSA

The flood stage for the Little Sioux River near Spencer is 10 feet, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA). The previous record water level on the Little Sioux River near Spencer was 20.2 feet, and on June 22, 2024, it crested at 22.10 feet — nearly two feet higher than the previous record water level. The flood stage for the Ocheyedan River running through Spencer is eight feet. The previous record water level for the Ocheyedan River there was 12.9 feet, and last June it crested at 16.9 feet. Both rivers met the criteria for the 500-year flood plain for Clay County.

Nick Woods, Clay County FSA executive director, said the county saw lots of pasture damage and much grazing loss in the weeks and months (90 days at least) post-flood.

“Some basically lost the entire grazing season up until frost,” said Woods. “I had producers whose pastures were completely destroyed, or were under water for a month.”

Clay County livestock producers have been signing up for the ECP and ELAP programs, which help with pasture and crop land repairs, and grazing losses.

Woods said Clay County saw between 20 and 30 percent of row crops heavily damaged to the extent that they would raise a low-yield to no-yield crop.

He anticipates some producers putting some of their pasture into CRP in the future, or some placing more buffer between them and the river, or some who will reduce grazing or abandon pastures along some areas of the river.

But he said plenty are planning to go back and repair pasture damages, redesign fences and put more distance between fences and rivers, or replace woven wire fences that were destroyed with electric fences as a cheaper option.

Woods said repairs will most likely take into next year, with some cow producers doing some reseeding or burning off their pastures, etc. Most crop producers have done something about working their ground and getting fields back to pre-flood condition.

“Some of these cattle producers will be here again next year by the time they can get everything put back together,” said Woods.

He said reimbursements with FSA relief programs are a cost-share situation. The ECP program is scenario-based, he said, with fences being reimbursed at 75 to 90 percent depending on the severity of damage.

Woods said he saw a 10,000- to 15,000-bushel grain bin washed into a field in northern Clay County, and at least one field near Peterson and one north of Spencer where sand was two feet deep in draws and waterways.

Sand removal atop rich farm soil has been a tricky process, Woods said, and added that producers also need to be careful about where they place unwanted sand. He said they cannot take it to local wetlands, nor place it back in the river.

“Producers will need to place that sand where it will have the least environmental impact,” said Woods.

He said he anticipates more assistance programs coming out for flood losses similar to what they’ve had in the past, including programs tied to crop insurance losses. He said he is not aware of major livestock losses, but knows of livestock wandering out of pastures.

Woods said Clay County FSA requested relief funds in the amount of $1.1 million, as a starting point.

“I’m going to say that 20 to 30 percent of crops were destroyed or damaged beyond repair,” said Woods. “Some soybeans came out of that, and some producers had been waiting to plant with all the spring rains, so a lot of them planted after the flood too, if they could get in. So there were a lot of soybeans planted late, and that actually turned out OK here.”

Woods said producers have been frustrated with the way “things have been.” But he said there is $31 billion in national economic disaster aid for farmers and ranchers in the second extension of the 2018 Farm Bill, as well as $21 billion in agricultural disaster aid from the American Relief Act of 2025 to be distributed by USDA to cover expenses due to loss of revenue, and quality of production of crops in 2023 and 2024.

Woods said there will also be $10 billion in economic aid and response coming in some form of payment for commodities of corn and soybeans.

He encourages producers to apply for disaster assistance when programs and deadlines are announced, and check with FSA offices to know when those deadlines are. For now, he said producers need to come in and sign up for ARC/PLC before April 15.

-Photo by Karen Schwaller
Flood waters took a harsh toll on farm fields. This corn field, located west of Spencer, is shown as it appeared after widespread flooding in June.