STILLWATER, Minn. — After the latest round of rain and snow in Minnesota, there is now an 80-90% chance that the St. Croix River at Stillwater reaches a major flood stage.
But city leaders say they're ready, thanks in part to a flood protection process that began nearly 60 years ago, when a large group of teenagers led an effort to protect the downtown area from the highest flooding the city has ever seen.
By the time Tom Sweeney got to town in 1965, water from the St. Croix River was already covering part of Stillwater's Lift Bridge, and the National Guard was busing in teens like him from throughout the region to build up a temporary levee.
"There were trucks backing up with sand, there were people all over, it was raining, it was miserable," Sweeney said, describing the first night he got into town. "'Frantic' is the word I could say."
Sweeney, of Afton, immediately started filling sandbags for a levee that followed the railroad tracks near downtown. The work was so urgent that he and other students, many of whom were off from school for Holy Week, worked in shifts through the nights leading up to Easter weekend.
"We slept in the armory up the hill. They had a tarp down the middle of the armory — girls on one side, boys on the other," he said.
Chris Nelson was a Stillwater senior when he was called to help construct what would soon become known as the "Teenager's Dike."
"We were going as fast as we could because the water was coming up," Nelson said.
"But I just remember it as being fun."
For Nelson, it was certainly more fun than what was happening at his home in nearby Bayport.
"My parents' house flooded that week," he said. "We were shooting muskrats out the front windows to try to keep them from coming into the house and the shotgun shells would eject and splash on the floor of our living room."
Though his work in Stillwater was exhausting, Nelson says the teens enjoyed their newfound freedom and relished the chance to take charge.
"There weren't a lot of adults there," he said. "We kind of figured that we knew as much about building dikes as anybody else down there."
Roger Peterson, a city councilor at the time, says that's largely true.
"This was the first dike ever built in Stillwater," Peterson said. "So we didn't really have any experience at it."
Peterson and other city leaders were also working around the clock from City Hall, trying to find enough materials for the levee, while also keeping the public out of harm's way during the construction downtown.
That left the teens to do the bulk of the work, with some unexpected help from another group of adults.
"One day, a bus pulled up behind us and 25 to 30 guys got out," Sweeney said. "We started to talk to these guys, and they were from Stillwater prison."
"Yeah, we were working with the prisoners," Nelson said. "It was fine. They worked very hard and they were happy to be out, too."
They were also all happy to have free meals. The Red Cross took over a local kitchen and provided food, and so did a few downtown restaurants.
"I had my first ribeye steak that week," Sweeney said with a laugh. "They wouldn't let us pay for it."
"I don't know anybody who worked down on the dike that didn't have a good time," Nelson said.
Kent Erdahl: "Did you know that they were having so much fun?"
Peterson: "No, but that's why we had chaperones at the barracks. We didn't want them to have too much fun."
They certainly struck the right balance. By the time the river crested on Easter Sunday, April 18, 1965, the dike was held and Main Street was spared.
"Without the teenagers, we'd never had gotten the dike built," Peterson said.
After the crest, many teens received special tokens of thanks. The special coins marked the record crest and acknowledged the importance of the "Teenager's Dike".
"I don't know if we went into it thinking we would save the town," Nelson said. "It was a really cool thing to do and we were just having fun. I guess we were saving the city at the same time."
And they gave the city the blueprint for decades to come.
Sweeney: "This is amazing to see the way they're doing it now."
Erdahl: "You paved the way."
Sweeney: "I didn't. I helped. Thank God I was able to. I just hope to heck that the records aren't broken."
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