Forty years ago this month, Austin experienced twin, 100-year flood events that devastated several areas in and around Austin within a 10-day period in June and July 1978.

The stage was set for the flooding back on June 30 of that year, when a large area in the southern part of the state experienced huge amounts of rainfall; in fact, seven to nine different areas received over 6 inches, according to the National Weather Service in LaCrosse, Wisconsin.

The rain continued on and off; by July 5, the area was already saturated when Rochester was devastated by the waters, which resulted in five drowning deaths.

While Austin also experienced flooding on July 5-7, the real flooding haymaker came July 16-17, when a second major rainfall event hit the area bringing with it as much as 9 inches of rain in Mower County.  The mounting moisture that began on June 30 steamrolled into massive flooding; by July 17, the Cedar River cresting at 20.35 inches, a record that stood until July 2000.

Wind, lightning and hail came with the second flood, drenching the town until power was knocked out; hundreds were forced from their homes.

Over 650 homes, the majority along the Turtle Creek, Cedar and Dobbins Creek areas, were damaged in the flooding. After the 1978 flood, the Austin Housing and Redevelopment Authority began an acquisition process of buying up the worst homes in the flood plain, a process that continued into the 1990s.

It wasn’t the first time Austin suffered flooding and hardly the last. Subsequent floods occurred in 1983, 1993, 2000, 2004, when a new peak record of 25 feet was set at the wastewater treatment plant. The 2004 flood of Sept. 14-15 brought two deaths – one man was swept away by the waters, while another man suffered a heart attack while sand bagging. Austin suffered the brunt of the storm over the two-day rainfall that brought very high or record crests to the Cedar River.

Hail, lightning and rain ravaged this area 110 years ago, on June 23, 1908. The intense rainfall was followed by flooding, which overwhelmed the pumps at the city plant, and cut off power at the electric plant. The Mower County Transcript said the newspaper was produced, despite the 40 inches of water inside the offices. The bridge on Bridge Street was washed into the river but thanks to a farsighted Sheriff R. A. Carmichael, no one was hurt when it fell. Carmichael ordered all residents to stay back from the abutments before it was torn from its moorings.

The flood was preceded by a vicious storm that carried “unprecedented fury,” according to the Transcript.

Barns, church steeples and grain elevators all suffered damage due to lightning strikes and some cattle in Mower County fields died from the lightning as well.

Hail “the size of hen’s eggs” fell in Dexter and crops “were pounded to destruction” three miles south of Austin at Varco, today a ghost town.