“Immensely fortunate”, that’s Dundas City Administrator John McCarthy commenting on Thursday’s tornadoes. He said within just blocks of the City boundaries, there was much more devastation, including Bridgewater Township. There was a tree that came down and ripped up a sidewalk and the Dukes baseball field had some fence damage but overall they were very lucky. The Dundas Council met Monday night and discussed hauling away
residential branch debris and decided they really don’t have the capacity to do it. He added that many residents have disposed of their own debris with contractors or volunteers.
Dundas Council approved giving offers to 2 part-time Patrol Officers. With the retirement of Chief Gordon Mincke, they appointed Officer Eric Klein as Interim for 90 days as they evaluate his performance. Their initial thought is that Klein will be made Chief but they want to do their due diligence.
Cannon River Wilderness Park closed – Sakatah Lake State Park opens
Due to damage sustained in the recent storm event, the Cannon River Wilderness Park in will be closed until further notice. Entrances of Hwy 3 and 151st St E and Cannon City Blvd are closed. What IS open is Sakatah Lake State Park. It reopened this morning. The trail clearing will continue over the next couple days, and campsite reservations have resumed. Two campsites will remain unavailable for reservation while work takes place on high hazard trees near those sites. Just after noon, the Rice County reported that the Sakatah Singing Hills State Trail opened this Wednesday morning. You may recall that it was closed between Faribault and Elysian after last Thursday’s storm.
Cleanup days for Faribault and Northfield
The City of Faribault will conduct a city-wide storm tree/brush pickup starting on Monday, October 1st. The City of Northfield will start pick up on October 8th. Rules include:Trees/Brush must be piled on the curb – crews will not enter on private property to pick up the brush. No garbage or any other debris except trees and brush. And they must be 4 ft in length or less. Place limbs and branches parallel to the curb. This is a one time pickup offer.
Volunteer organization
Volunteer organization is happening through various outlets. For Northfield, go to NorthfieldShares.org. Executive Director Mike Krance said they are looking to define an area that needs help. He’s working with the City and Colleges, who have campus groups that are offering help, “and we’re looking to put some more organized effort together where we can get some of these campus groups out to canvas portions of the city to really get out there and go door to door and see what kind of help is needed rather than sending a group of 40/50 volunteers out to one or two houses. We’d like to know neighborhoods that have been hit, who’s a coordinating person that we can get someone in contact with. that’s the kind of information that we’re really looking for “. For individuals, there is a form to fill out that will help them organize efforts to optimize resources. I have a link. For all of Rice County, call their storm hotline at 833-643-7423.
NAFRS ok’s new Pumper
The NAFRS Joint Powers Board met last week before the storms cut loose. They accepted a bid for a new fire truck from Custom Fire in Osceola. Vice Chair Glen Castore said it’s a Pumper truck, which are usually first on the scene. Custom fire purchases a chassis and then builds from there to specifications. The cost is over $607,000, after a discount of $14,200 for prepaying $400,000 by December 1st. They should take possession by July of next year. He added, “the other thing that we did was we specified that it be virtually identical to the pumper we purchased several years ago and the reason for that is that it minimizes training so people don’t need to go through another training exercise to learn how to drive the truck or run the pumps”. Castore’s full interview is on kymn.net.
