Flash flooding in Duluth, Minnesota, has forced residents to evacuate, left homes underwater, destroyed roads and even led to the drownings of at least eight animals at a zoo.
Between 5 and 9 inches of rain fell between Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, sending what looked like raging rivers through Duluth's streets, according to the National Weather Service. Another 2 or 3 inches of rain was still likely to fall.
Duluth residents, who are more used to having snow dumped on them rather than flash floods, said the damage was worse than anything they had ever seen.
"This flooding has been crazy. We have not experienced anything like this in our community," iReporter Kayla Keigley, who said she works as a health care preparedness coordinator, told CNN. "Roads are destroyed. Neighborhoods are underwater. I am in shock and I work in the field of preparedness - this is something I work to 'deal with' daily. Our community is in disbelief."
Workers at the Lake Superior Zoo were in disbelief, too, when they learned at least eight animals drowned there. The toll might still rise, because the workers hadn't yet been able to check all enclosures.
"Sadly the zoo experienced the loss of several animals, among them many of the barnyard residents," Susan Wolniakowski, the zoo's director of guest services, said in a news release. "Due to flooding, the zoo’s polar bear Berlin was able to exit her exhibit. She was darted by the zoo’s vet and is safe in quarantine. At no time did any dangerous animal leave the perimeter fence."
The zoo said the staff still was assessing the situation.
“Obviously, our entire staff is devastated,” the zoo’s director of animal management, Peter Pruett, said.
With more rain still coming down this afternoon, the mayor, the weather service and local emergency management officials warned residents to be careful and to stay off the roads. Several people have had to be rescued from their cars because of either flooding or because they had fallen into sinkholes, the weather service reported.
Richard Thomas sent iReport a photo of this car that drove into a sinkhole when it was flooded.
"We continue to emphasize that this is an extremely dangerous and life threatening situation for all areas in Duluth and along the north shore of Lake Superior," the National Weather Service said.
Keigley told CNN that in the area of Duluth where she lives, the "water has destroyed city streets, manhole covers are blown, (and) storm water is overflowing into the streets."
"Debris is washing down the roads, cars are underwater in some places, (and there are) sinkholes in neighborhoods," she said.
Keigley said that nearby rivers were overflowing and surging through the neighborhood.
"This is absolutely crazy and insane," Keigley said. "This is nothing like normal Duluth weather."
– CNN's Kara Devlin and Dave Hennen contributed to this report.
© 2012 Cable News Network. Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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is their any plan in place to save the rest of the animals – to move them to safety?
Flash floods can be entirely unpredictable. I lived in a city that had a flash flood once. We were alerted that the water was coming ahead of time but as it had never happened before, we didn't know exactly where the water would go. What happened was it traveled down the drainage system upstream and when more water began to enter than could leave, the drainage system in our city started to quickly back flow.The flood pattern was not intuitive. Some streets higher up flooded when it didn't seem possible because they were at the top of a hill, and a lot of the streets in the lower areas didn't flood because they were not in the path of the water. The water came so fast that my neighbor, who barely escaped, was soaking wet up to her waste. The water stopped at the end of my street which faced south, even though it came from the north. You'd think the water would have trickled through yards and flood my street but it didn't.
There are a few animals going to St. Paul MN. Berlin the Polar Bear, and the 2 escapee sea lions...
The zoo is in a small valley with a tiny creek running through it. The water had to rise over 20 feet to kill the animals in the petting zoo. There is some higher ground but to get the animals there would be very difficult.
There was one rogue seal that escaped and was wandering the streets! There are some cute pictures of it, I don't see any on here though!
Hello, Over the last 15 years I have rescued a number of wild and abandoned injured cats. At present i have 4 cats in my house in three seperate living areas. Last month my husband hit a gas main and my first thought was for my cats! I ran like lighting to move them to safty at risk to my own life and I find it pathetic those animals were left to drown! I would not allowed that to happen to them even at the cost of of my life! And you would think a Zoo would have an emergency plan set up to protect their wards! Shame on them! They should be fired!
This happened so fast... there was not enough time to do anything. It was just so quick.... the zoo is large and covers a lot of ground. It was in the middle of the night, there was NO time whatsoever. Just no time. One house is basically a 50 x 150 ft lot... imagine how much ground a zoo covers. There just wasn't any time... it happened so quickly, at lightening speed.
The employee at the zoo "feel bad"... how do you thing the animals felt!
Not quite swimmingly, I would suppose..
"At least eight" aren't feeling anything anymore
Prayers go out to folks in Duluth. with this city on the sides of a hill the water must be moving at a very fast pace. Sure hope no people get injured or killed.
Dot, thank you. It's nice to see one person who understands how we are all feeling right now. Our city has never, in one hundred years, experienced anything like this (there was a similar flood 40 years ago, but it wasn't anything like this). Our hearts are breaking as we try to pick up the pieces, and all anyone has done is chastise us for having a zoo?! It's so frustrating I could scream. You have no idea how your post is one bright spot amongst hundreds that are only making us feel worse in an already dark time.
Animals should not be kept incarcerated for the pleasure of human beings. Watch Nat Geo.
Even domesticated animals like goats and sheep? No, it's better to turn 'em all loose: that way, we can all just say "It's not my problem" when humans systematically wipe them out, which will give us humans more space on the planet– which is, after all, what's really important, isn't it? Gotta make space for us all-important humans! Nothing to do with conservation or with preserving species that would otherwise vanish: zoos have nothing good to offer, right...?
I guess we should close the prison system.
I agree.Poor animals.
No zoos please.
Really?? Wowwww.... our city is underwater. We're mourning the tragic loss of our beloved zoo animals, our homes and community, and you have the nerve to use our tragedy to spread the "No zoos please" message? I don't particularly care for zoos, myself, for the nerve of you to say that when our city is mourning the way it is.... just wow.
The white mans Katrina...
notice no looting, robbing, assulting....just sayin...
way to sink to a low level. Whats next? Bush caused this?
Hope NOLA is taking notes on how to recover. Stay tuned.
Your city and it's inhabitants (both 2 legged & 4 legged) are in my prayers.
"This is nothing like normal Duluth weather"....... uhm, I agree!
Duluth is a great town- the only problem with it is its another totally liberal, totally broke city.
Well, it's only fair, then, because Obama and his liberal policies caused all this rain. Lend us $50M, cleT.
Agree, get rid of all zoo's, plenty of animals in the streets.
Time to hire new zoo management. Pathetic. I have a couple dogs, a couple cats, and a horse. I've always had a worse case scenerio plan for floods and fires. These people really dropped the ball.
I live in the Twin Cities which is about 2 hours from Duluth...Pray from them! It's nice to see a city come together instead of loot and steal like the people of New Orleans did! MN will be fine.
FYI Duluth is 3 hours away from the twin cities driving the speed limit, not 2 hours. I feel more sorry for the zoo animals then the stupid people who live in that city, they depended on the zoo to look out for them and they didn’t. Did Duluth officials neglect to issue a flash flood warning? Did they neglect their sewer system, 5-9 inches of rain causing a flash flood? Really? They have hardly any rivers that would be of concern. The city of Duluth is full of hills and it’s on a decline so water would pool in the lower part of the city (near Lake Superior). MN shouldn’t give any money to that city, I don’t care if it is ever restored it doesn’t generate enough revenue to sustain itself, it is not growing has been stagnant in growth and revenue generation for years. They build stupid money pits (i.e. Aquarium).
you make baby jesus cry
There is nothing more to say than how dare you. The zoo employees held a vigil just a month ago for an intern that died in a car crash. Our city has done everything it can to try to care for those animals, and that zoo was a big part of our community. There are children on every street corner (some of whom lost their zoo animals and HOMES) trying to raise money for the zoo. You are disgusting.