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| Americans being Americans: Don't Miss Pics from Red River |
| 2009-03-30 |
| Red River Flooding The Red River is approaching record flood levels, likely to break century-old records this weekend. Flowing north toward Manitoba along the Minnesota-North Dakota border, the river is jammed up by ice and is being fed by rain, snow and meltwater. The National Weather Service has issued projections of a crest of 43 feet near Fargo, North Dakota, 24 feet above flood stage. Volunteers and national guardsmen are out in force, building levees, rescuing and evacuating those that need to get to higher ground. Cold temperatures are hampering efforts, freezing damp sandbags and making the job that much more strenuous for volunteers. 800 more National Guard troops and 150 Red Cross personnel are arriving in the area this weekend. (30 photos total) |
| Posted by:Sherry |
| #20 "nbeckm1187, you are not a nice person. Extremely clever, but not at all nice. ;-)" And we LOVE it. :-D |
| Posted by: Barbara Skolaut 2009-03-30 21:19 |
| #19 sandbagging, yes. but by the river, no. we prefer to call them office cubicles. |
| Posted by: GirlThursday 2009-03-30 19:34 |
| #18 *giggle* nbeckm1187, you are not a nice person. Extremely clever, but not at all nice. ;-) |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2009-03-30 19:31 |
| #17 I sent an e-mail yesterday to Americacorps to ask if their volunteers were sandbagging by the Red River. No reply yet. |
| Posted by: nbeckm1187@aol.com 2009-03-30 19:30 |
| #16 It's amazing. Good to note the contrast with Katrina and God bless those folks. |
| Posted by: JAB 2009-03-30 17:33 |
| #15 Apparently the river crested below the projection because the water from upstream froze. North Dakota and the states surrounding it were hit with a severe winter storm that pretty much locked up the excess storm water. They're expected to get another dose today or tomorrow. Al Gore could not be reached for comment... |
| Posted by: Old Patriot 2009-03-30 16:19 |
| #14 besoeker shhhhh, don't tell anyone about the GA Protect Yo Family Plan |
| Posted by: rabid whitetail 2009-03-30 11:49 |
| #13 Fargo will remain a vanilla city. |
| Posted by: Mayor Dennis Walaker 2009-03-30 09:53 |
| #12 Looting of big screen tely's? Probably not much of a worry. I suspect their Neigborhood Watch programs include pre-planned "firing lanes" and "kill zones" as we have in rural Georgia. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2009-03-30 09:47 |
| #11 No looting of big screen televisions or folks on their roof with a “Help US” signs to be sure. However, less then a third of all residents in the area have Flood Insurance. It should be interesting to see if, in the aftermath, rebuilding is done with Disaster loans or if there will be another outcry for victim subsidies. Or maybe, just maybe, people just won’t build their homes in a flood plain this time. |
| Posted by: DepotGuy 2009-03-30 09:43 |
| #10 No worries, bus loads of reinforcement volunteers will soon be arriving from New Orleans and communities throughout Louisiana. A coalition of the concerned including President Obama, Mayor Ray Nagin, Rev. Al Sharpton and Rev. Jesse Jaskson have seen to it! [snark off] |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2009-03-30 09:37 |
| #9 Fargo is expecting another foot or so of snow today and tomorrow Fargo had over 300% of its normal March precip (about half falling as snow). Similar problem throughout the Red River Basin. |
| Posted by: mhw 2009-03-30 09:31 |
| #8 and...and...and where's all the ice and snow coming from???? It's spring and AGW means there's no ice in the Arctic!!!!! so how can their be ice way down south like that?????? |
| Posted by: AlanC 2009-03-30 09:13 |
| #7 Shouldn't they be sitting on their fat asses, drinking looted Heineken, and waiting for Uncle Sugar to rescue them? |
| Posted by: Parabellum 2009-03-30 08:34 |
| #6 Not many wusses in that part of the country. Those folks know how to survive, and they'll do it without the whining of city-dwellers who are conditioned to depend on the government. |
| Posted by: Spot 2009-03-30 08:23 |
| #5 But where is BUSH? He should be God Bless them all! |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2009-03-30 07:31 |
| #4 And not a single community organizer in sight. |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2009-03-30 04:44 |
| #3 Old article. Apparently the crest was 40.8'. By yesterday pm the level was down to 39.8' and by local midnight it was down near 39.5. |
| Posted by: mhw 2009-03-30 04:09 |
| #2 Commenter #249 -- That guy in the helicopter in the photos is my dad! He has been really busy with this flood and I don't see him much because he leaves early in the morning and comes home in the late evenings. My dad has also had to go to Fargo to help up there too. I'm proud of what he does and if you happen to know him or see anyone in uniform please thank them for what they do here at home or over seas. We were lucky enough to be far away from the flood but some of my friends weren't. They are all O.K. though. On the bright side, we got out of school for a few days. :) Posted by Amanda March 28, 09 09:22 PM |
| Posted by: Sherry 2009-03-30 01:58 |
| #1 I'm amazed at how the locals share the burden. From the Fargo Forum: Bruce Boelter and Tony Guck figured they’ve expended ample sweat helping erect a sandbag wall blocking the Red River from their Fargo neighborhood. And they’re being proactive making sure it’s up to par. On Saturday, Boelter, 56, had walked the entire length of a roughly milelong stretch of sandbag dike to eyeball the manmade wall separating their subdivision – an eclectic mix of townhouses, duplexes and split-level homes – from the Red River. Guck, 42, joined up with him halfway along, each figuring they had a special stake in the integrity of the dike they helped build. Monitoring the dikes, they said, was a shared duty, with someone assigned to walk the 3-foot-tall wall of sand every hour around the clock until the crisis passes. Guck said he expected to walk the line every six hours, with others taking part in the rotation. “There’s always a person every hour going,” he said. “If we don’t protect this, it’s gonna get us.” |
| Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 2009-03-30 00:58 |