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Flooding impacts southern MN families

"We've never seen cattle going down the river," says Donny Ehlenfeldt.

BYRON, Minn. — When you live along a river, having water in your backyard is normal...until it becomes your entire backyard - and then some.

That's the situation Bob Griffey found himself in Friday morning. He received a call from his neighbor that his home was underwater.

Bob says, "supposedly it's going down further up the river so hopefully it will start going down here quick too."

He's calmer than you'd expect someone to be when their main floor is full of water.

That's because Bob has been through this before.

"In 2010, it was up to the doorknob," he says. 

Back then, the flooding was even worse, hitting hundreds of homes and business - prompting a countywide plan to prevent it from happening again.

Without it, Olmsted County deputy Mike Bromberg says the flooding now would be much worse. This time it's mostly underwater roads.

Bromberg says their flood mitigation methods are working right now.

Residents still see rapids where roads were...and cattle.  

"We've never seen cattle going down the river," says Donny Ehlenfeldt. 

Donny and her brother caught, on video, cattle being swept away by the river.

"It's pretty horrifying because there's nothing you can do to save them. We saw live ones and dead ones," she says.

About half are now on dry land where Donny and her neighbors are trapped with all three roads going in still underwater.

Donny says, "there's probably about 10 of our houses that nobody can go anywhere. it's kind of like we're on a little island."

Deputies are hoping to get to them in the morning when the water, hopefully, goes back down.

Bob too is hoping he can get in sooner rather than later.

He says he's "just riding it out for the moment."

To get in and see the damage. 

Dealing with this type of event for the 2nd time in nine years means that he and his wife are already looking for a new home.

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