Car, furniture and other junk pulled from McCook Lake as state completes $1 million flood cleanup

Grass grows on Sept. 5, 2025, along a part of the McCook Lake shore that was previously inundated with sediment. (Courtesy of Dirk Lohry)

Dirk Lohry said McCook Lake was inundated with all kinds of debris during severe flooding last year. 

“We had a car, table saw, boats, boat lifts, a lot of furniture,” said Lohry, the president of the McCook Lake Association. 

All of that junk and most of the sediment that washed into the lake have been removed, he said, now that the state’s $1 million cleanup is complete.

Following the June 2024 flood, surveys by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and state officials estimated there was more than 20,000 cubic yards of sediment and debris in the lake.

The state awarded a contract to Three Oaks Construction of North Sioux City after a competitive bidding process. Work began on May 15 and concluded on the Aug. 1 deadline. That’s according to Game, Fish and Parks fisheries staffer Kip Rounds, who gave the department’s oversight commission a status update during a meeting Thursday in Rapid City. 

Crews used both land-based and barge-mounted excavators. The project was funded by the South Dakota Department of Public Safety’s emergency and disaster budget. 

The McCook Lake Association plans to pump water from the Missouri River next spring to return the lake to recreational levels. At that time, North Sioux City will reopen its public boat ramp at the lake, and the Department of Game, Fish and Parks will lift the no-wake restriction that has been in place since the flood.

What happened?

Three days of rain June 20-22, 2024, in southeast South Dakota surpassed 17 inches in some locations. Local and state authorities implemented a half-century-old diversion plan to handle record-high water that was flowing down the Big Sioux River toward Sioux City. They built a temporary levee across Interstate 29 that tied in with permanent levees to divert water into McCook Lake.

The water was supposed to flow through the 270-acre oxbow lake and drain toward the nearby Missouri River. Instead, it overwhelmed the lake and inundated many of the homes around it.

More than 100 homes near the lake were damaged, and 20 were destroyed. Many residents said the flood surge came suddenly, after they’d received little to no warning.

McCook Lake’s north shore neighborhood is still working to return the area to its pre-flood look, with some damaged homes, property and infrastructure remaining unrepaired.