Gov. Dayton Tours Carlton County
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BARNUM - After touring much of Duluth and St. Louis County last week, Gov. Mark Dayton made a second visit to northeastern Minnesota Tuesday, this time in Carlton County.
"We've dealt with some flooding in the spring's in the past but the water kept coming and we didn't have any answers for it," said Mayor Jason Goodwin, of Barnum.
Barnum is just one of many Carlton County towns washed away in last week's flash flooding.
Tuesday, Gov. Dayton stopped to meet with city leaders, see the damage and tried to determine dollar amounts attached to them.
"It's just devastating. It's just hard to see the pain in people's faces and people who have lost much if not all of what they worked very hard to hold up and they’re left wondering what's going to happen and what help is available and we don't have those answers yet," said Gov. Mark Dayton, (DFL) Minnesota.
The city of Barnum estimates 50 plus homes have been lost and labeled 15 businesses as total losses.
"Most of our downtown businesses are out of business. Our main diner, a pawn shop, an auto sales, we lost a lot of businesses downtown," said Goodwin.
In fact, Chad Beauliu owns three businesses in town, a construction outfit, a carwash, and fitness center. And all three have to be re–built from the ground up.
"It's hard to explain I guess. I don't know, it's a lot to take in when you see everything going under water. It's crazy; you know your whole life goes under," said Beauliu.
The governor plans to have a presidential declaration letter sent to the president by the end of the week, requesting additional disaster relief.
In the meantime, people in small towns like Barnum will continue to take the recovery efforts one day at a time, pulling together for one another.
Goodwin said, "Barnum's a great little town to live in and we're not going anywhere."
"We've had hundreds of people come into the business here and try to help out, the church is feeding people and so we've had a real tight community. I loved this town before and I love it even more now," said Beauliu.
