YOU CAN CHOOSE to laugh or to cry, or to laugh after you’ve cried.
You can choose to give up or to be strong.
In Zumbro Falls, you’ll find humor and hope in a town overtaken almost three weeks ago by a flash flood that damaged nearly every home and business.
Sure, residents of this small southeastern Minnesota community are frustrated and tired and angry. Yet, they remain hopeful. They can still laugh between tears.
This sign hangs on the garage of a split-level house along Water Street in Zumbro Falls.
This is the now uninhabitable flooded house where the humorous sign, above photo, hangs. You can see it between the open garage doors. Floodwaters rose to about the top of the front door into the home.
To the right, just above the front door, you can see a line marking how high the water rose on the split-level house, above image.
Water Street seems appropriately named given the residences along the street that were flooded.
I don't know whether this fish was hung on this front porch before or after the Zumbro Falls flood, but I'm guessing afterward.
It seems ironic that a bottled water cooler stands beneath the words "WATER LEVEL" on the Zumbro Falls Fire Hall.
Was Z.F. Storage for sale before or after the flood? I don't know, but the structure is now labeled with this warning: LIMITED ENTRY. ENTER AT YOUR OWN RISK. THIS STRUCTURE IS UNINHABITABLE."
A sign of hope in Zumbro Falls, next to a gas station.
© Copyright 2010 Audrey Kletscher Helbling
Minnesota Prairie Roots 
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