"Amazing what a floodplain will do..."

That is a quote from the person who sent this photo. Rivers can stand up to 100-year rain events and floodwaters without collapsing on themselves. They can spill water out into vegetated floodplains and deposit material... slow flow down and ease the pain of a big event.

Altered channels, confined waterways, incised streams and rivers that get water from acres and acres of tiled cropland and pavement cannot take the stress. They erode and fall apart... give up the ghost and things just happen exponentially in a big bad sequence that works its way downstream.

So - YES - I am saying we can't be too surprised when things like this happen... Not when we bring it on ourselves by taking away the capacity of all flat land in SE MN to absorb and hold water. My belief and educated guess is that in a natural setting this event still would have resulted in a flood, but it would have been to a much lesser degree, and you would have seen much less erosion, gullying and sediment movement in general.

"...bank erosion is just a river searching for its floodplain..." -from some meeting I attended