Several leaders from rural communities are in Washington, D.C. this week, asking lawmakers for help with infrastructure in their areas.
Areas of Minnesota this week are still working to recover from devastating flooding, including Blue Earth County which was hit hard by dam failures. A county commissioner told the Senate Ag Committee that communities like this need help navigating disasters that have never happened before.
“We need assistance and we don’t know what we don’t know, we’ve maybe never done this before. Many counties don’t have the expertise. They don’t know what’s available. So I guess I would just ask that we all work together the best we can. You know, as a farmer, you learn as an early age from your dad or really probably from your grandpa, that working together works. I would just ask that whether it be the federal state or the local governments, we do as good a job as we can to work together. But when a disaster strikes, the rest of the activities in the county don’t come to a standstill. We had county employees that went above and beyond and spent days and days on site. There’s still other things going on in that county that have to be covered. Thank you to all our blue with county employees for the great job they did and and all over the the country, but we really need some assistance because we don’t know sometimes what’s available or we don’t have the resources to access that technical assistance,” said Kevin Paap.
