A couple takes a close look at the rising Cottonwood River on Cottonwood Street in New Ulm Monday. The City of New Ulm closed the street as the river rose past major flood stage.

NEW ULM — Recent heavy rain pushed the Cottonwood River at New Ulm past major flood stage early Monday.

The City of New Ulm closed Cottonwood Street on the south edge of New Ulm at 4:44 a.m. Sunday.

“There is a lot of debris floating in the river,” said New Ulm Police Chief Dave Borchert. “The city street department is supervising contractors removing debris.”

Borchert said the Cottonwood and Minnesota River forecasts are an inconvenience to residents but should not cause any evacuations with the current forecasts.

The Cottonwood River rose into major flood stage (16 feet) early Monday morning. It was forecast to crest at 18.1 feet early Tuesday before gradually falling this week, according to the National Weather Service (NWS) Advanced Hydrologic Prediction Service.

The NWS reported the Cottonwood was observed at 23.69 feet at 9 a.m. Monday before quickly falling to about 18 feet. Record flood level is 20.9 feet on April 8, 1965, according to the NWS.

Borchert said debris dams caused the river level to briefly spike, according to measurements taken near the Cottonwood Street bridge.

The Minnesota River level at New Ulm was observed at 800.41 feet at 11:45 a.m. Monday, according to the NWS. The river was forecast to crest at 800.7 feet Tuesday. Minor flood stage is 800 feet. Moderate flood stage is 804 feet.

Between 10 and 11 inches of rain was reported in the Comfrey area late last week Comfrey Mayor Gary Richter said firefighters, first responders plus volunteers quickly responded to rising “overland water” levels that threatened a number of structures and caused the closure of County State Aid Highway (CSAH) 17 on the south side of town.

“It happened very quickly, going from high water to a flood in about an hour, around 6:30 p.m. Saturday,” Richter said. “We had heavy rain, which we can handle. We have a county ditch and county tile bypass through town but it’s not big enough to handle the overland water from outside the city.”

Richter said he was thankful for the response that included sandbagging and an apartment building, duplex and the former hospital.

“The climate and weather is changing. Storms are increasing in volume,” said Richter. “We’ll have to change things too. We’ll have to re-engineer the system. We’ll definitely need state and federal assistance for a major project.”

Richter said lots of people have water in their basements, some basement windows blew out and water was still being pumped Monday.

“I can’t say enough about our city employees, local volunteers and people from out of town. It’s amazing. They just appeared,” said Richter. “We had more than three feet of water in places like retention ponds. Lots of our streets were flooded. It was tough to get through town. We’ll have weeks of cleanup. There’s a lot of things floating around. We’re going through the MPCA (Minnesota Pollution Control Agency) to get some big dumpsters hauled in.”

The Minnesota Department of Transportation reported at about 5:30 a.m. Sunday that State Highway 68 was closed south of Courtland due to a mudslide on both driving lanes. The highway was re-opened at 10:30 a.m. Sunday.

The City of Sleepy Eye reported at 10:22 a.m. Sunday that its sewer system was overloaded due to the large amount of rain. The message read that city crews began working Saturday night to resolve the situation.