You gotta love these people,  The text on the mug says, “Spring 2010, Annual Flood Fight of the Century, Fargo, ND.” For the 2009 flood, T-shirts were the big deal.

Fargo, ND and Moorhead, MN are now coming into the weeks of flood.  Back in March, a summary of Sandbag Central and prep work was published. If you didn’t see it, here’s a link that will give you background on this year’s flood and the history of flooding in the Red River Valley.

https://theconservativetreehouse.wordpress.com/?s=Fargo+Flood

The schedules for delivery of the  three million+ sandbags filled by Fargo volunteers were broadcast last night.  They will be distributed over the next four days, with each neighborhood assigned a certain day.  Trucks will be loaded at the storage areas and then escorted in convoys to neighborhoods and individual homes. (UPDATE THURS AM: Snowing heavily this morning.  Sandbag deliveries have been postponed at least one day.)

Last week homeowners were reminded that they needed to plan ahead to take the day off off work, if necessary, to be home to accept delivery.  They were asked to get a team of volunteers together to be ready to accept the sandbags and place them where they want them, either straight into their backyard diking or into a storage area.  If they were not able to find enough folks to get it done, they are to call the city volunteer center and volunteers will be sent to their address at the time they are needed.

Another part of their preparation is that they need to remove any garden or yard fences that would prevent the pallets from being easily offloaded and moved into their back yards.  They also needed to remove any bushes or trees that might be in the way.

These deliveries had originally been scheduled to take place last week, but then a significant blizzard with temps around zero every night came through.  The sandbags can’t be delivered for staging until there is assurance that they won’t freeze.  It’s ok if they freeze after they are built into a watertight dike.  If they freeze before building the dike, they are nothing more than seriously useless paperweights.

In other flood areas, where it’s not “along the river” the homes are each diked as seen in this photo.  The primary goal for the entire area is protection of life, property and infrastructure.  The intensive work required to provide sandbag dikes around individual homes is done by the homeowners, their neighbors, friends and volunteers.  Sometimes they know ahead of time they will need to do the ring dikes; sometimes it’s the first time for them, and they get on it as the danger becomes apparent.

Moorhead, MN, just across the Red River and the ND/MN border had shut down their Sandbag Factory after filling 1.5 million sandbags a couple of weeks ago.  Then they discovered some more storage space, so they opened operations up again and filled another 300,000 in a few days.  Just in case.  Never know when you might unexpectedly need 100,000 filled sandbags here or there.  Their home deliveries start this week as well.

The daily public briefings at city offices started yesterday, and will continue for the duration.  The talk radio stations are beginning to provide running coverage re diking of all kinds (the city does large clay dikes when entire neighborhood streets need to be protected), resources for volunteers, levels, reporting leaks, etc.

Church and civic groups are gearing up to provide 24/7 food and drink for all the crews that will be on duty for the flood.

Both the Sheyenne River and the Red River of the North run the entire length of Fargo/West Fargo/Moorhead cities, including the “old towns” where the settlers first established themselves in the 1800’s.  The backyards of all those homes link their diking so it ends up being solid walls of sandbags, Hesco Barriers, etc. from the south side of town five miles through to the north edge, on both sides of the river.  The photo to the right shows what happens in the countryside where the river is just allowed to “be the river.”  (the snaky treeline shows you where the actual riverbed is)  This is what would happen in town as well without all the sandbagging.

The same preparations and processes are going on in Ada, MN; Valley City, ND; Jamestown, ND and all the small towns up and down the length of the river from Wahpeton, ND/Breckenridge, MN (another set of twin towns) to the Canadian border, 300 miles north.  Valley City, a town of about 7,000, had prepared 50,000 sandbags.  After last week’s storm, they thought another 100,000 might be wise, so students from the local elementary and high schools turned out yesterday to help make that happen.

Right now, temps throughout the areas are in the low 30’s in the daytime and in the teens at night.  Thawing has pretty much stabilized for the moment which is just as well, because roadside ditches in open country are already full to the edges.  Last week’s blizzard/snowstorm was very wet and heavy snow, so there was a significant addition to the water content on the ground.

(Photo: Individual homes are sometimes lost…then it looks like this)

The best case is a slow thaw~~with temps in the low 40’s during the day, and dipping down toward the low 30’s at night, so what has melted would have some time to get out of the area before the next day’s melt.  A slow thaw will give them, once again, record-setting flood levels and the good possibility of managing it.  A fast thaw over a period of days instead of weeks will give them damaged dikes and things going wrong faster than they can fix them and the potential for losing downtown Fargo/Moorhead, the way Grand Forks, ND was lost in 1997 when the dikes were over-run.

During the coming weeks, emergency services personnel, city administrations, city workers, the National Guard and the citizens of the Red River Valley will be giving it everything they’ve got, 24/7, to stop the Red.  During the flood, mail deliveries usually continue, although they may look a little different.

This is not a flood that hits and is gone in a matter of days: it’s sort of like an inland, slow-moving tsunami that is just as deadly if it is not managed as well as possible.  They are already at flood stage in several areas, which is just the beginning.  The eventual crests in some areas will be over 20 feet above flood stage…and they will (if they succeed, as they usually do) make that massive flow stay where they want it to stay in terms of the cities and towns.

Aside from the river’s flood condition,  overland flooding where the water stands 1-3 feet deep over thousands of square miles will simply be endured as the farmers’ families manage their homes and their livestock for the duration.  The equine studies program at the University of North Dakota has announced that they will have staff and stabling for horses.  Those who bring their horses in for free shelter and care will also bring in food and hay for their own horse, which will be managed for them by the student staff.

https://www.ndsu.edu/fargoflood/ This link from the university provides historical perspective as well as this year’s flood resources and events.

This is Dennis Walaker, for many years one of the prime city managers and the one who led the flood fight in ’97 , now the mayor of Fargo.  If they don’t put up a statue of this guy or name a state park after him or something, they’re just not paying attention, IMPO.  He’s representative of almost all the public servants in this area….and I love that I don’t have to put quotes around “public servants” when talking about these folks.  These people are public servants.  In the 1997 flood, sometimes it took a bit to find Dennis. At that time,  he wasn’t city admin~~he was the pointy end of the stick at the river.  He would just quietly walk away or drive away from whatever was happening at one spot and go walk the dikes alone, sometimes in the middle of the night, looking for leaks.  His skill, his unflappability, his common sense and his capacity to get things done are a huge blessing to the Fargo community and, as I said, those characteristics are commonly seen in the city and county public servants in these parts. Photo on the right is the mayor of Moorhead, Mark Voxland.  Pray God’s blessings on these men, strength and wisdom to do all that needs to be done, the ability to git ‘er done the way their hearts desire.

This is a puzzle piece of America.