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nue going to come from in the future," Jens said.
• Waubay native Rick Breske said residents are "trying hard to do the best we can to deal with the situation."
• "I give a lot of credit to the people who aren't picking up and leaving," he said.
• Waubay is in the middle of what is believed to be a closed basin, with no natural outlet. The 10 major bodies of water in the chain are: Bitter Lake, Blue Dog Lake, Enemy Swim Lake, Hillebrands Lake, Minnewasta Lake, Pickerel Lake, Rush Lake, Spring Lake, Swan Pond and Waubay Lake.
• The water has no place to go other than from one body to the next. Bitter Lake, south of Waubay, has grown from about 5 to 32 square miles in the last two decades. Waubay Lake, north of the town, has ballooned from about 8 to 27 square miles.
• On a recent ride through Waubay, Jens called attention to a row of vacant, boarded-up modular homes surrounded by weeds. The 16 units were built for low-income Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate tribe members, but residents have scattered to other communities and there are no plans to revive the development.
• "Nobody has lived in here for well over a year now," said the mayor, who also grew up in the town. "It's depressing. It was beautiful down here. Kids used to play behind these houses, in nice green, cut grass."
• Breske estimates the flooding has cost him as much as $90,000, from building berms and moving rock to money lost on land. He eventually moved his house to higher ground on the west side of town.
• "A lot of people took buyouts. We decided to move," he said. "We've spent a lot of money remodeling over the years and like our house."
• Jens made water his No. 1 issue when he ran for mayor in 2000, but not because residents were worried about too much of it. He promised better water quality and infrastructure, and delivered with a water and sewer project soon after being elected.
• The area was facing a wet cycle, but a stretch of dry weather in the early- to mid-2000s had most residents thinking the worst was over.
• "We let our guard down," Jens said.
• Minor flooding hit in 2009 after a winter of heavy snow, but the major water struggles started in 2010. The main lift station has since flooded and one of the town's two motels has gone out of business. Houses have moved or been demolished or placed on stilts, and thousands of acres of farm and pasture land are underwater.
• U.S. Geological Survey hydrologist Dan Driscoll said there was no way to predict the abrupt changes in the last decade. He compares the chain flooding to that of Devils Lake, N.D., though Waubay's is on a smaller scale. Devils Lake has grown

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