With floodwaters receding, more damage and debris is being revealed. Public parks like Land of Memories and parts of Sibley Park in Mankato remain closed despite the danger of the river having mostly passed.
It’ll take weeks of cleanup before the parks reopen, all at a time of year that usually sees those parks bustling with life.
The city said that so much has to be done that the parks likely won’t be open any time this month and closures will likely last into August.
Some areas are cleaner than others; the barn side of Sibley has been open for a while, but the baseball field side is unusable with fence damage, diamonds caked in mud and a line of trees flattened along the river.
Land of Memories isn’t much better, which areas of the disc golf course still underwater and downed power poles that need to be cleaned up.
The city said that’s a mountain of work ahead to make the parks usable and that they need residents to be patient as they make sure everything is safe before they let people back into the parks.