BEMIDJI — Senator Amy Klobuchar stopped in Bemidji as the community continues to grapple with the devastation left by the June 21 windstorm.
Bemidji Fire Chief Justin Sherwood led the senator’s visit Friday, July 25, beginning with a brief presentation in the fire hall. He gave a broad overview of the storm’s damage, showed photos and outlined the response steps taken.
"Emergency crews were starting to become dispatched around that 2 a.m. hour, so, a lot of our beginning work was in the dark," Sherwood said during his presentation. “As the sun came up and crews began moving around the city, this is the type of devastation we encountered.”
Klobuchar and her staff saw damage at Diamond Point Park, posed with Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox, and toured a neighborhood on the east side of Lake Bemidji — some of the hardest hit areas from the storm.
They also visited the Sanford Event Center, which was propped up as an emergency shelter despite major damage in the arena.
President Donald Trump previously announced plans to phase out FEMA after this hurricane season. But as Beltrami County and others work toward a federal emergency disaster declaration, Klobuchar said she believes the agency will still be around to dole out funds.
"People who are in disasters, communities that are in major disasters — whether it's fire, whether it's storm, whether it's tornado — for them, FEMA is not a bad four-letter word, it's a good one, and they are there on the ground,” Klobuchar said. “And I believe in fully funding FEMA. I think you see after the [flooding] tragedy in Texas, there's some backing off of some of that discussion.”
The June 21 storm caused an estimated loss of 9 million trees, with millions of dollars of public infrastructure damage. An official estimate of damage to private homeowners and businesses has not yet been tabulated.
In partnership with the Minnesota DNR and the U.S. Forest Service, Beltrami County created a digital map pinpointing the swath of damage with aerial photographs.
"You can scroll across the county and get a sense for how devastating this storm was," stated Beltrami County Emergency Management in a post sharing the map. "It is evident how impactful it was from west of Bemidji right into the Leech Lake Reservation."
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