Star Tribune
Minnesota family that lost home to fire loses another house in flood
A family in southwest Minnesota is struggling to pick up the pieces after losing two homes in less than a year — one to a sudden fire and one to recent floodwaters.
Curtis and Karla Ray said their first house in Slayton burned down in November and recently was demolished. They moved to a second house in Windom, which flooded in June’s historic floods and will need to be torn down.
The family is now living in a third house, which also flooded.
“We’ve had a little bit of a rough stretch,” Curtis Ray said Tuesday.
The family is one of thousands of Minnesotans hit hard by historic rains in June, which caused flood damage in 47 counties.
The Ray family at the time of the floods in late June was in Windom, where heavy rains caused the Des Moines River and Perkins Creek to overflow.
They were in Windom because their home in Slayton, some 30 miles west, burned down seven months ago. The sudden fire in the afternoon of Nov. 11 destroyed the entire property and almost all their possessions, Curtis and Karla Ray said Tuesday.
After the fire, the family moved into a house in Windom that Curtis Ray had inherited after his father’s death.
Curtis Ray, who hauls livestock, and Karla, who works as a county assessor, have three children and six dogs.
They were staying at their home on Cottonwood Lake in Windom when the floodwaters began rising in mid-June.
“The water came up all at once, it went into the patio, into the house,” Curtis Ray said. “Within eight hours, we had standing water, we were on an island.”
The flood destroyed sentimental mementos the family had saved from the fire, the couple said.
Karla Ray recalled the moment she walked into the garage and saw water soaking and overturning their boxes of memories — her oldest child’s soccer and wrestling pictures, her middle child’s 3rd grade graduation certificate, Mother’s Day cards to her over the years.
“I knew the few things that we had saved were going to be destroyed,” Curtis Ray said. “It makes you sick.”
The home in Windom is now unlivable due to mold and damage to the structure, Curtis Ray said.
The family is now living in another house in Slayton, which they bought in March. That house also flooded, and Curtis Ray said he believes he must “totally gut the basement there” though the house is still livable.
The Ray family said they are grateful to the volunteers who helped them during the flood. Windom had about 1,000 people help with sandbagging, cleanup, and giving out supplies, said Hilary Mathis, who helped coordinate volunteer efforts.
“The need for aid is far from over,” said Mathis, who had come to the Ray home to help sandbag. “There are many families that will need community aid after the water is gone.”
Curtis and Karla Ray said they struggled to make sense of the misfortunes their family has gone through in the last year.
When asked how she makes sense of all that’s happened, Karla Ray said flatly that she can’t.
Curtis Ray said he had time to reflect on losing his home when his house burned down in November, but to have it happen again is “trying,” and makes him wonder what comes next.
“You just gotta try to hold everything together and keep moving forward,” Curtis Ray said.
His tongue in cheek, he likened the last seven months to the Biblical plagues.
“We’ve got fires and floods, and now the mosquitos are coming in,” he said.
The only debate between DFL U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar and GOP challenger Royce White started Sunday on the street outside WCCO Radio.
As White approached the building, he loudly called some two dozen flag-waving and cheering Klobuchar supporters a “whole lot of commies.” The 33-year-old provocateur and podcaster also told them to thank Republican former Vice President Dick Cheney — who endorsed Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris — because there was “no chance in hell” that Harris would defeat Republican former President Donald Trump on Nov. 5.
Klobuchar, 64, had arrived moments earlier, smiling and wishing “good morning” to her supporters. Once inside, the two took questions for an hour from moderator Blois Olson. Their tone was generally polite with White often interrupting a Klobuchar response with, “rebuttal,” indicated he wanted to respond.
The senator repeatedly raised White’s claims on X, formerly Twitter, that “The bad guys won in World War II” and that there were “no good guys in that war.” She called that stance offensive to veterans.
U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar arrives at WCCO Radio for a debate with Royce White in Minneapolis on Sunday, Oct. 27. (Richard Tsong-Taatarii)
Klobuchar, who is seeking a fourth six-year term, portrayed herself as a pragmatist. She opened by saying that we live in “incredibly divisive times politically” but that she has listened and worked with Republicans to bring down shipping costs, drug prices for seniors and to help veterans and push for more housing and child care.
“Courage in this next few years is not going to be standing by yourself yelling at people,” she said, her opening allusion to White’s rhetoric, which she said is often vulgar.
White, a former NBA player, is a political novice, but a close ally of Steve Bannon, the jailed former chief strategist for Trump and right wing media executive. Last summer, White won the state GOP endorsement to run against Klobuchar.
“Our country’s coming undone at the seams. I think we can change that,” White said in his opening statement. He said he threatens the status quo, decried the “permanent political class” and referred to the two major parties as the “uniparty.”
Other buildings destroyed at Khojir and Parchin likely included buildings where Iran used industrial mixers to create the solid fuel needed for its extensive ballistic missile arsenal, Eveleth said.
In a statement issued immediately after the attack Saturday, the Israeli military said it targeted ”missile manufacturing facilities used to produce the missiles that Iran fired at the state of Israel over the last year.”
Destroying such sites could greatly disrupt Iran’s ability to manufacture new ballistic missiles to replenish its arsenal after the two attacks on Israel. Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, which oversees the country’s ballistic missile program, has been silent since Saturday’s attack.
Iran’s overall ballistic missile arsenal, which includes shorter-range missiles unable to reach Israel, was estimated to be ”over 3,000” by Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, then-commander of the U.S. military’s Central Command, in testimony to the U.S. Senate in 2022. In the time since, Iran has fired hundreds of the missiles in a series of attacks.
There have been no videos or photos posted to social media of missile parts or damage in civilian neighborhoods following the recent attack — suggesting that the Israeli strikes were far more accurate that Iran’s ballistic missile barrages targeting Israel in April and October. Israel relied on aircraft-fired missiles during its attack.
However, one factory appeared to have been hit in Shamsabad Industrial City, just south of Tehran near Imam Khomeini International Airport, the country’s main gateway to the outside world. Online videos of the damaged building corresponded to an address for a firm known as TIECO, which advertises itself as building advanced machinery used in Iran’s oil and gas industry.
Some take him up on it and fret when he’s not around.
“It is nice to be missed and be part of the school’s culture,” Arzola said. But mostly, he added, he wants kids to know that police aren’t around just for when the bad stuff happens. He’ll hand out his stickers and bracelets, even a trading card bearing his image. Then, they’ll talk about dogs and family.
School resource officer Al Arzola talks to students in his office at John Adams Middle School in Rochester on Oct. 11. (Leila Navidi/The Minnesota Star Tribune)
Two months ago, Rochester played host to a three-day training session for new SROs from across the state — an event organized by the Minnesota School Safety Center. On the final day, the 26 officers learned about surveillance challenges at the other school where Arzola works: Dakota Middle School.
It is a beautiful building with a scenic view. There is a lot of glass, too. Arzola, handling the role of instructor and tour guide, took the group outside and noted how one could look straight through the entrance to the large groups that gather inside. There were no curbs in front, either.
“There is nothing stopping any vehicle whatsoever from going through my front doors,” Arzola told the officers. “Law enforcement wasn’t talked to before this building was made. It was kind of like, ‘Here it is. You’re the SRO. Do what you do.’”
He showed them his office, too, which is separate from the main office and near those of other school support staff members. That makes sense, said Jenny Larrive, SRO coordinator for the Minnesota School Safety Center, given than SROs spend more time connecting with youth than on actual law enforcement.
