The intense weather phenomena brought a flood in southeastern South Dakota recently and exposed the faults of Gov. Kristi Noem.
While the rain was falling, he left the state for one political conference and television interview.
When devastating floods reached Lake McCook, her sketchy appearance there — along with her lackluster crisis communications and departure for a non-governmental political fundraiser — left people without adequate warning of the danger they faced.
And after declining to use the National Guard to prepare for or respond to flooding, Noem said activating the Guard would be “extremely expensive” and that troops should only be used in a “very crisis situation.” This from a governor who ordered troops to the Texas-Mexico border three times and paid for it with money from the state’s Emergency and Disaster Fund.
According to Noem, none of this was wrong and she led a steady flood mitigation and response effort informed by her experience.
“We learn with every flood that happens,” he said during a Tuesday Press conference.
This is true. And there’s a lot to learn about her from this.
“If we don’t, then that’s great”
The flooding began with three days of rain June 20-22 in southeastern South Dakota, exceeding 17 inches in some locations.
The Big Sioux River swelled to a historic level and flooded many towns as it flowed into Missouri. There was Lake McCook and the 230 homes around it.
Meanwhile, where was Noem? Her official diary is protected by one glaring exception to South Dakota’s open records laws. But some details of her travels are known, thanks to journalists like Dominik Dausch of the Argus Leader, who reviewed social media posts from across the country to fill her location gaps.
On Saturday, June 22, Noem delivered a speech at a Faith & Freedom Coalition conference in Washington, DC
On Sunday morning, June 23, it was on NBC “Meet the press,” where she spoke with the host about politics and whether she’s being considered as a running mate for Donald Trump.
By that afternoon, Noem was back in South Dakota. She led press conference with federal, state and local officials in North Sioux City, where he spoke about a voluntary evacuation order in the Dakota Dunes, the construction of a temporary levee, the closure of Interstate 29 and the status of Missouri River dams.
No one at the press conference expressed an urgent safety concern about McCook Lake. When someone asked what lake residents should do, Noem said they should protect their personal property, “because we expect they will get water.”
“That’s why we’re preparing,” he said. “If we don’t, then it’s great that they don’t have an impact, but they could see water flowing into Lake McCook.”
No one at the press conference made it clear that the dam under construction was intended to direct floodwaters away from North Sioux City through a pond to Lake McCook, where the overflow would hopefully drain to the Missouri River with minimal damage.
From Lake McCook to Memphis
Admittedly, it was hard to imagine how deep the lake would flood because no one has ever seen so much water in the Big Sioux.
But this is exactly why Noem and her advisers should have sounded the alarm. He said during Sunday’s press conference that the river would reach a record level by the following afternoon. He knew an unprecedented situation was unfolding.
Shortly after she finished speaking, forecasters were already predicting an earlier and higher river crest. The water was rising so fast, it rose more than a foot during the press conference.
But Noem could not see the river. She got away Sunday afternoon in Tennessee, where he led off the Shelby County Republican Party Lincoln Day Gala in a Hilton billed as the tallest hotel in Memphis. Tickets ranged from $200 to $2,750 for the “vintage circle table.”
Back at McCook Lake that night, all hell broke loose. The Big Sioux went over Interstate 29 and crashed into homes on the north shore of the lake. Local authorities tried to alert residents and rescue teams spent the night and the next morning carrying stunned people to safety.
Noem returned to South Dakota for press conferences Monday and Tuesday, where he described the carnage: “We have whole houses that have fallen into the lake. We’ve got hundreds of feet of washout, we’ve got power lines in the streets, we’ve got boats stuck in trees, we’ve got trees half down.”
According to her, it was inevitable.
“That mitigation plan would have worked in a lesser case,” he said, “but there was so much water flowing through there.”
Well, yes, just like he knew he would. He said Sunday afternoon the Big Sioux would crest at an all-time high, and he knew the excess water would drain into Lake McCook. That’s why people living around the lake needed the clear and loud warning they didn’t get until it was too late — the kind of warning Noem’s predecessor, Gov. Dennis Daugaard, provided before a flood in 2014 in the same area, when he said:I am very concerned about the residents near Lake McCook.”
As Noem said, there’s something to be learned from every flood, and the people of Lake McCook learned a painful lesson: Neither hell nor water will stop Kristi Noem from pursuing her own ambition at the expense of the people she serves.
GET MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
