Cook Community Leans On Each Other As Swollen River Takes Over Downtown

COOK, Minn. – The small, close-knit city of Cook is dealing with a big problem.  The swollen Littlefork River has sent feet of water into the low-lying downtown.

Homes and businesses are surrounded by water.  Some basements have feet of water, according to locals.

There was a slight sign of relief Thursday because forecasters believe the river has hit its highest point.

But the clean-up effort is going to last much longer after the river returns to its banks.

“Northern Comfort has five feet of water in their basement. And we’re sandbagging trying to help them,” said Memory Malone, a resident of cook.

The town of roughly 500 came together Thursday, one day after the torrential rainfall, to do whatever they could to protest homes and businesses in the downtown area.

For Malone, water surrounded her house and some got inside. But she’s more concerned about others.

“It’s absolute helplessness. You just want to stop, stop it and you can’t stop it, you want to help your neighbors. And there’s just a point where you have to give up on your stuff. I’m one of the lucky ones. I only have about two inches of water in my basement. My yard is flooded. I feel very blessed that that’s all that I have,” Malone explained.

Another resident, Rachel Indihar, was out helping try to protect North Star Credit Union where she works.

 “It has risen so fast. I came into town yesterday, like 5:30. And I thought, you know, are we have two buildings in town. And I thought, you know, I think we’re okay, we can do some standing tomorrow; we’ll be fine. But then when we came in this morning — oh, no, we need to get our hands together. And really, we need to sand ASAP because the water levels have risen so much in just a short period of time,” Indihar explained.

While the destructive water is something nobody wanted to deal with, Indihar said the community’s response makes her proud to live in Cook.

“It’s really nice to see the town come together and help everybody, like these guys here. They’re volunteering their time. And they recommended that we put sand in the back of our credit union right now to protect our foundation. So everybody just helping each other as best as we can,” Indihar said.

Gov. Tim Walz will be visiting Cook and Biwabik on Friday to survey the flood damage.  This comes after the St. Louis County Board approved a disaster declaration Thursday.