By Lexi MooreA small area of southwest Rock County was pounded by rain and heavy winds late Sunday night and early Monday morning.The slow-moving storm was concentrated on the border between Minnesota and Iowa. Locally, Steen residents were hit the hardest, reportedly receiving five to six inches of rain between the hours of 11:30 p.m. and 1 a.m.Steen Mayor Melvin Van Batavia reported that most residents received at least five inches, but that most rain gauges stop at four. At 12:35 a.m. on Monday morning KDLT reported that Hills had seen a quarter of an inch since midnight, but the total before midnight was nearly three inches.Heavy rainfall in such a short amount of time led to flooding in many homes in the region and in the sewer system of Steen.Basements in at least six homes on the south side of Steen filled with water when the Steen sewer system couldn’t keep up with incoming water.By 12:15 a.m., Van Batavia received a phone call notifying him that an alarm was sounding at the lift station, signaling the pump was unable to keep up with the volume of water going through."The sewer system just couldn’t handle all of the water from the rain and from the drains in basements. It took until noon yesterday to get caught up," said Van Batavia who spent the night helping residents.A culvert in town backed up, causing water to spill into a basement through a window. The basement filled up to the top step. On Monday, the culvert was cleared to avoid the problem in the future.Although the National Weather Service issued a flash flood warning at 11:15 p.m., many residents were already in bed for the night and unaware of the potential for flooding.Residents who were awake began moving boxes off their basement floors. Very few homes stayed dry.Drivers unlucky enough to be on the road during that time faced difficult driving conditions.Hills residents had some flooding but the sewer system did not have any problems."We were lucky, there were no calls or complaints to the city," City Clerk Connie Wiertzema reported on Tuesday.Rauk’s Convenience Store in Beaver Creek reported just over an inch of rain during the night.According to the State Climatology Office, Rock County averages about three and a half inches of total precipitation for the month of July. The storm brought over a month’s worth of rainfall in a very short amount of time."It is extremely unusual for such a small area to receive such a large amount of rainfall in just over an hour," said Pete Bouley of the State Climatology Office Division of Waters.
