Since June 2024 we have had several shows and newscasts devoted to the severe flooding that impacted Northwest Iowa and Southeast South Dakota.
That is when such rivers as the Big Sioux in the Sioux City Metro area and Little Sioux in other places such as Spencer, Iowa, impacted many homes, businesses and more.
This What’s The Frequency Show is devoted looking back at the flooding on the northwest edge of Sioux City at the Sioux City Railroad Museum, which got extensive water damage.
Lots of portions of those grounds got inundated, by the historic flooding, which took 72 hours to recede. That onslaught caused $2 million in damage to buildings and interior artifacts.
Museum President Larry Obermeyer gives an update on that trying time.
"It was hard, I am seeing volunteers crying...They could see we were losing the battle," he said.
The Sioux City Railroad Museum was closed for 10 months to May 2025. Obermeyer said lots of people, even people who had been flooded out of nearby homes in North Sioux City, helped with museum recovery labor tasks.
"I kept hearing, 'This is our museum, we want it to come back,' " he said.
"We were all in this together."
Since reopening, over the four months visitors from 40 states, totaling about 27,000 stops.
The museum was the brainchild of Obermeyer, who worked with the city of Sioux City to bring back the grounds from a decrepit state in the 1980's, years after the 1948 heyday of the railroad repair shop at that location. At one point, 565 workers were employed there.
*Click on the audio link above to hear the entire show.
What's The Frequency, Episode 76.
