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Regent Bergland reflects on flood of support
It’s early August, and Robert Bergland’s glass is inspiringly half full, considering his house was barely half empty of Roseau River runoff just two months ago.
Bergland, a University of Minnesota regent and former U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, has been living in a travel trailer provided by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) since a foot of rain fell June 9 and 10 in Roseau, a Minnesota town 10 miles from the Canadian border. The subsequent flooding of the Roseau River caused $140,000 in damage to the house Bergland purposely built three feet above the river’s previous high-water mark. His homeowner’s insurance doesn’t cover the flood damage.
But Bergland prefers to point out the positives, like the immeasurable help from scores of strangers from Winnipeg to Minneapolis. And the 22-person work group of high school teammates assembled by his grandson and granddaughter one day to remove the slop from his basement.
“They had to carry it out in five-gallon pails—mud and gravel that washed in, debris, dead animal carcasses,” Bergland says. It was terrible, but “these kids were having a great time.”
“The outpouring of support was just unbelievable, from total and complete strangers,” he adds. “They were all cheery and very pleasant. And they made people, like my wife and me, who were totally devastated by this [flood], feel a whole lot better.”
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