SITTING OUTSIDE the Salvation Army trailer in downtown Zumbro Falls on a sunny Sunday afternoon in October, flood survivor Susie Shones says, “We’re the forgotten ones.”
“We,” she defines, are the nearby small towns of Hammond and Millville and the unincorporated settlement of Jarrett just to the southeast. Up until the Zumbro River overflowed its banks in late September flooding her rental house with six feet of water, Shones called Jarrett home. Today she’s living with a brother-in-law in Millville. Six people in a two-bedroom house.
When the heavy rains came and the Zumbro River swelled, Shones says they were told at about 11 p.m. to get out of Jarrett. The women left and went to Rochester. But the men stayed behind to watch the rising water. At 4 a.m., she says, her husband called to say the water was “going up high.”
Soon they lost their home and her husband’s auto salvage yard, their gun collection, too, an anticipated income source upon retirement.
Today she wonders about her future and feels forgotten.
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PER SUSIE SHONES’ suggestion, I headed south and east of Zumbro Falls toward Jarrett. But once I reached Wabasha County Road 11, I found the road closed. Not wanting to risk a hefty fine for traveling on a closed road, I never made it to Jarrett.
© Copyright 2010 Audrey Kletscher Helbling
Minnesota Prairie Roots 
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