Henderson celebrates reopening of Highway 93

Drivers who head south on Highway 93 in Henderson have seen the same sights for about three summers: orange barricades, closed road signs and detour arrows. Some drivers don’t even bother taking the long way and bypass the small town in Sibley County altogether.

Schuette’s Ice Cream Shoppe is one of several small businesses in Henderson to have seen less traffic because of the highway closure. Owner Sarah Schuette said the reopening of the highway couldn’t have come sooner.

“This should really help a lot to bring more traffic to town, and it’ll be fun for our local residents, too,” Schuette said. “And our visitors to be able to get here a little bit easier.”

For nearly three years, residents in and around Henderson have had a hard time getting places, especially south of town. The state has been building and raising up a portion of Highway 93 to address chronic flooding.

The estimated $30.5 million project finished, and the highway will reopen to drivers at 3 p.m. on Tuesday. The Minnesota Department of Transportation will host a ribbon cutting ceremony with the public.

It was a complex project. Highway 93 runs along the Minnesota River, south of Henderson, and is surrounded by swampy backwaters and wetlands. It crosses over the Rush River in an area of marshy estuaries.

When the water would rise, the highway would flood and be shut down. In 2019, Highway 93 was closed for a total of 60 days. Then in 2020, there were five separate closures caused by flooding, according to MnDOT.

“Highway 169 was closed down for water, and so we only had one way in and out of town,” Schuette said. “[MnDOT] were kind of starting on 93 at that time. So some of their materials floated away.”

The detours added significant time to trips and commutes. For example, a trip to nearby St. Peter used to take about 10 to 15 minutes. With the closure, it ranged between 45 and 50 minutes.

MnDOT decided it needed to rebuild the highway and raise it eight feet. Now, it’ll be a foot above the highest flood level. This was considered an uncommon type of project that relied on geotechnical engineering, and it was especially challenging in a floodplain.

“If you can imagine it being a wet sponge, when you add more weight to it — i.e., the dirt material to build the road on top of it — it compresses that and sinks a little bit or settles out,” said Adrian Anderson, project engineer for MnDOT District 7. “In engineering, you can’t fully foolproof anything, but we’re pretty confident that we won’t have to make any further changes to raising the road in the future for this stretch of (Highway) 93.”

A climate resilient future

Experts say flooding has become more common due to climate change. Minnesota has already started feeling the cost of a warming world.

In March, the Minnesota Climate Adaptation Partnership submitted a study to the state legislature. It said without proactive investments in preparedness and adaptation, the state could see more than $20 billion in damages every year by 2040.

Even with more climate resilient projects, it won’t necessarily prevent all risk. Heidi Roop, director of the Minnesota Climate Adaptation Partnership, said if the state made an upfront investment of a billion dollars a year, those investments would prevent over $4 billion in damage, repair and delay costs.

“As we are thinking about how to create the future we all want, we’re factoring in the reality that the climate is going to look very different than the one we’re living in today,” Roop said. “And we’re making investments and adaptations to account for that future.”

‘We’re just real glad’

Despite the headaches, the town took the flooding problems in stride. It even hosted a “flood fest” as a way of uplifting residents’ spirits.

Sarah Schuette of Schuette’s Ice Cream Shoppe said she’s glad to call Henderson home.

“We really like living here, so it’s worth the extra hassle and effort of driving a little out of our way to get to where we need to go,” she said. “I think we try to make the best out of every situation, and it’ll make this even better now that it’s open again. We’re just real glad.”