N.D., Minn. Prepare For Record Flood

Race To Fill Millions Of Sandbags Ahead Of 40-Foot River Crest Next Week

(CBS/AP)  The race to fill 1.5 million sandbags to fight what could be record flooding has shifted into high gear with the addition of 225 National Guard soldiers and more cutting-edge equipment.

Volunteers were being bused in to Fargo's "Sandbag Central," a city utility building the size of a football field normally used for housing garbage trucks. About 130,000 sandbags were produced on Friday, and the operation went into 24-hour mode on Saturday.

"The first three hours this morning we produced 40,000 bags, which is ahead of yesterday's pace," said Bruce Grubb, Fargo's enterprise director. "So I'm extremely happy with that."

The city on Saturday also was closing the First Avenue North bridge over the Red River for dike construction.

The latest projections from the National Weather Service say the Red River is expected to crest between 37 feet and 40 feet sometime between March 28 and April 1. Officials are nervous about a storm that's expected to drop an inch or two of rain in the Red River Valley beginning on Sunday.

A 40-foot crest is 22 feet above flood stage and about a half-foot higher than the historic 1997 spring flood that left several Fargo residents scrambling to save their homes.

"If we go to 40 feet, we're going to be tested," Fargo Mayor Dennis Walaker said Saturday after touring sandbagging operations with Gov. John Hoeven and other state and local officials.

The call for people to help fight what could be a record flood brought a steady stream of volunteers to Fargo's "Sandbag Central," including firefighters, a high school baseball team and a married couple of 51 years.

Don Such, 74, sat on a chair next to a sand pile Friday morning while his wife, Alice, 73, filled bags with a shovel inside the huge city building that normally serves as a parking garage for garbage trucks.

"What's better than to sit on a chair and let your wife do the shoveling? You can't beat it," Don said.

"We think this is the thing to do when our city is in trouble. This is home," Alice said. "The way they are predicting, it's scary."

Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty declared a state of emergency Friday in seven counties that border North Dakota: Wilkin, Clay, Marshall, Polk, Norman, Kittson and Traverse counties, and activated the National Guard to help in flood preparations.

In Washington, North Dakota's congressional delegation and governor met with officials of the White House, Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Army Corps of Engineers, the National Guard and the National Weather Service.

"The wild card is this weather event this weekend and into next week," Sent. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., said by phone Friday morning. "The people we met with today assured us this morning that they are prepared to win this fight in every community."

The threat is increasing with a storm moving in from the Pacific by early next week. Pat Zavoral, Fargo city administrator, said the temporary levees are being built to 41 feet or 42 feet.

The city has new equipment to help fill sandbags. Two "sandbag spiders" were set up inside Sandbag Central. The machines, which cost $35,000 apiece, are rated to fill 5,000 sandbags an hour, Grubb said.

"We thought it was a good investment because these 100-year floods seem to be more and more frequent," Grubb said.

Others were filling bags the old-fashioned way, with shovels. That included about 40 members of the Fargo South High School baseball team, whose practice was called off for sandbagging.

"This is our practice now," said Brady Horner, sophomore shortstop and pitcher for the Bruins. "It's good labor. It's a good workout. It also feels great to help out the community. You never know what can happen until it happens to you."

City lawbreakers got a chance to help. Fargo Court Judge Tom Davies offered people who had delinquent fines or outstanding arrest warrants a chance to get them withdrawn if they signed up for sandbag duty.

Federal authorities said they are increasingly worried about the expected flooding along the Red River Valley in the coming days, and have launched an unmanned aircraft to survey the region.

John Stanton, director of national air security operations for the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency, told The Associated Press that the Predator drone will map a 90-mile long swath from just south of Fargo to the Canadian border, along the river. He said the request for an expanded patrol area for the drone was submitted to the Federal Aviation Administration three days ago, and approved on Friday.

The radar mapping was to begin Saturday for a pre-flooding assessment, and will continue until the river has crested and begins to recede.

"This is looking like a terrible year, it may exceed the 1997 flood," said Stanton, pointing to the wide expanse of ice and snow expected to melt in the coming days.

The drone was flown to the state in December, and has been regularly used to patrol the northern U.S. border, in flights that originate at the Grand Forks Air Force Base.

In addition to the storm, officials said it would be difficult to predict overland flooding.

"I've talked to folks who have lived in areas for a long time who won't even predict that," said Dave Rogness, Cass County emergency manager. "They say you never know exactly where it's going to come from, or when, or how much."

An aerial tour of the Red River Basin did show positive signs, Walaker said.

"It didn't look as threatening as we've been hearing," he said. "Cautious optimism is the comment I would make right now."

Officials in Grand Forks planned to bring another so-called "spider sandbag" machine to Fargo. The city of Fargo recently bought two of the machines, which can produce about 5,000 sandbags an hour.

"It looks a little 'Star War'-ish in here," Grubb said, looking at the multiple legs that flow sand into bags. "But it's great."

Officials said they are hoping to produce 250,000 bags a day. The North Dakota State University football team was scheduled to join the endeavor in the next few days, Walaker said.

"We're still getting more demand for volunteers than we have volunteers," Rogness said. "This need is only going to increase over the next several days."

[ianlou]

Every time you see a story about a flood, you see hundreds of people filling sand bags and it never seems to be enough.

Why hasn't someone invented a piece of heavy machinery that fills and shoots sand bags with the speed and power of a wood chipper?

A machine that has a hopper you continuously fill with sand with a front end loader, a continouse tube of burlap and a heavy duty automated sewing machine and burlap cutter, an aim-able conveyor and your in business.

The could watch the weather channel and have plenty of time to travel where they are needed.

[kalund11]

I'm from Fargo/Moorhead. We all would appreciate your thoughts and prayers during this time as many people are fighting to save their homes. Any help would be appreciated as well...thank you. :-)

[emaegf]

to bornin1952 that was mean. may the heavens above reward your ignorance with 54 feet of water in your home

[kirstinharr]

Not global warming. Climate change.

[lloydbest1]

Update as of 9:00 CDT...

Clouds and some wind in the Red River basin as of now. River level at Fargo is at 21.1 feet and climbing. Flood stage here is 18 feet. Strong moisture laden winds forcast later today and the rain begins in earnest sometime late Sunday early Monday.
Looked at two forecast models, GFS and NAM. Both agree the brunt of the precipitation will come during the Sunday evening - late Wednesday time frame. Predicted amounts per day range from 0.25 inch to 2.5 inches. That's every twenty four hours. The three day total could conceivably add up to anywhere from one or so to over 7 inches of precipation on ground that is still snowcovered, mostly frozen and waterlogged. The wide range in predicted rainfall amounts is due to the showery nature of the rain. Air mass dynamics favor heavy showers or thunderstorm activity and some of these could dump up to 3 inches in localized areas. If any of these drain into the Red River things could get really ugly really fast.
What's driving all this tribulation for the upper midwest is a massive Pacific storm that is currently sending rain and wind along a stretch of coastline from Juneau, AK clear to Santa Barbara 1800 miles to the south. Quite apart from annoying sun worshippers here, this storm will move on and set up housekeeping in the northern Rockies and spend the next two - three days happily pumping moisture from the Gulf of Mexico and extreme southern Texas all the way up to central Manitoba.
The set-up doesn't look good now. The Flood prediction arm of the NWS is looking at a 38.3 foot crest late this week for Fargo.That's 20 feet over flood stage and about 15 inches below the crest of that awful thing in April, 1997. That flood crest prediction is based on predicted three day rainfall totals of anywhere from 1.25 to 1.75 inches. As noted above, depending on how much moisture actually gets sucked this far north and depending on the how and when of heavy showers and thunderstorm activity, those rainfall projections could be seriously underestimated. I think they might be.

[maiingan]

If the people now working so hard sandbagging had enough sense, they'd be planning for removal of all non-river-related structures from the floodplain, and rebuilding up and away from the flooding! Flooding is very expectable in this valley. Even if no taxpayer money contributed to rebuilding or sandbagging, time and natural resources are being wasted year after year to deal with flooding, for the sole reason that buildings and some thoroughfares are in harm's way. This time and these resources should be allocated toward projects which will not so certainly be wasted.

[ubrew12]

aziridine said: "Of course 2008 was the coolest year in over a decade, UBREW. Kinda blows your theory to hell. "
So, I read about 2008 being the coolest year in a decade. Here's what I found:
"Prof Myles Allen at Oxford University: "Actually no, its not been that cold a year, but the human memory is not very long, we are used to warm years," he said, "Even in the 80s [this year] would have felt like a warm year."

And 2008 would have been a scorcher in Charles Dickens's (1850s) time - without human-induced warming there would have been a one in a hundred chance of getting a year this hot. "For Dickens this would have been an extremely warm year," he said. On the flip side, in the current climate there is a roughly one in 10chance of having a year this cool.

I'll keep my little theory. You keep your head in the sand.

[aziridine]

Of course 2008 was the coolest year in over a decade, UBREW. Kinda blows your theory to hell. This kind of pattern as been sudid ad nauseum as El Nino and La Nina but the correlations with US weather are pretty loose. So sorry to spoil your neat little simplified fiction.

[Chrisreynolds12345]

WHAT??? People actually WORKING to help themselves? Why, when they could be sitting on their rear ends crying for the government to help them, demanding that FEMA fix everything, and in general, doing anything to make damn sure that they don't have to lift a finger to help themselves? Wait--this is the upper Midwest, where people realize that work is part of life, and they understand that the government does not exist solely to support them or those too lazy to get a job. There will be no whining, there will be no looting, there will be no outraged speeches decrying a lack of government intervention, and there will be no rapes and murders in an arena. There will be hard work and more hard work, without complaint. Oh, and a great deal of dignity. Other unnamed regions of the country could learn a lesson here.

[ubrew12]

mrbrill said: "People who think snow is proof that there is no global warming are showing their ignorance. A single season does not "prove" or "disprove" global warming."

Actually, record snows in the East and Midwest are signs of Global Warming (as is drought in the SW and, to a lessor extent, the SE). It seems to be the pattern.

Global Warming warms the N Pacific Ocean. It evaporates more water, so winds coming off of it are higher in moisture content. As this wind approaches the American SW, it encounters a high pressure area in the SW and off California, ALSO because of global warming. This high pressure typically exists only in the summer, but thanks to GW persists into the winter as well lately. The high pressure pushes the moisture-laden air northward into Canada. After the Rocky Mountains, the jet stream pushes the air back south and it precipitates as either snow (winter) or rain(any time other than winter, although THAT also may change in the future). The result is persistent drought in the SW and even much of the West, high drought in the SE. Record precipitation in the NW, Canada, the Midwest and the NE, leading to flooding in the spring in the MidWest.

Global Warming is real, get used to these climate patterns, I believe they will persist as long as GW persists.

[mrbrill]

People who think snow is proof that there is no global warming are showing their ignorance. A single season does not "prove" or "disprove" global warming. Global warming is shown by the trends over years and resulting impact like record loss of glaciers in both polar caps. With this kind of ignorance, no wonder Bush was able to be in office for 8 years and McCain/Palin had a "chance" of winning the last election.

[platteman]

NO is a rat hole, has been a rat hole, will always be a rat hole. The politicians are as corrupt as rats, so why pour more money into a rat hole. Build levies, they break, with the corruption and substandard construction and the political pay offs, pay to play in NO and most of LA, who cares. Put money where it will do the most good. Up North. When there were floods farther up stream on the Mighty Miss, you didn't see people crying for help. Only in NO and the Mayor Nagen and his crew did you saw how they let the people suffer.

So pour the money north, they deserve it, let NO and Negan and his crew go.

[aziridine]

Al Gore's Global Warming should have bailed them out. What's with the snow. Al promised it'd be like summer in Minnesota year round!!!

Seriously, the Mississippi floods most years. What has our Democrat Congress done to prevent this flooding? Oooops they didn't do anything. They were too busy giving that money to Wall Street!!
Maybe Al Franken the clown can fix it!

[lloydbest1]

A little background:
The upper midwest has had a somewhat cooler than average and snowier than average winter following an exceptionally wet fall. The ground is saturated. Since it has also been frozen solid from mid-November on, we would have to deal with waterlogged soils even if winter percipitation amounts were below climatological norms. They haven't been.
There has been (at least) three significant snowfall events this winter in the Red River basin, each of which produced snowfall amounts in excess of 10 inches. A week ago Fargo got about 13 inches in as many hours. For those of you living in New York's snowbelt or other snow magnets that may not sound like much but on the windward side of Lake Erie, a three foot snow dump may only yield three quarters inch of water equivalent. In the upper midwest we generally see one inch of water equivalent or more for every 8 or so inches of snow. There has also been numerous snowstorms that have dumped smaller amounts since fall. Remember, in this part of the world when snow falls, it stays and adds up.
The Red River flows north eventually exiting in Hudson's Bay near Churchill. However cold it gets during a typical Fargo winter, it's WAY colder in Churchill. Yesterday they managed a whopping -5 degrees for a daytime high. Point is, however "warm" it is in North Dakota and however much the river has thawed out there, it is still frozen downstream and any water that makes it there just gets backed up.
We have an unusually strong Pacific storm invading the entire west coast. Good for California but this system is also dragging the polar jet clear into northern Mexico, steering it over the western Gulf and shooting it straight up America's midsection dragging an absolute ton of moisture with it. With this low pressure system temporarily anchored over the Rockies we could be seeing strong southerly winds, heavy rain and near record warm temperatures for much of eastern North Dakota and western Minnesota.

So, we have a strong storm capable of producing anywhere from 2 to 6 inches of rain over a three day period starting about Tuesday. We will have temperatures in the upper 40's to mid 50's accelerating already considerable snowmelt and thawing out all that frozen AND saturated soil. We are nowhere near "ice out" below about Winnipeg so we can expect any water flowing downstream to dam up.
And....The Red River is at flood stage in Fargo as I write this and a hair's breadth from it in Grand Forks. It can only get worse. Both suffered tremendously during the 1997 floods and during them Grand Forks had the unenviable reputation of being the first North American city to undergo a full scale evacuation since the Civil War. Whether next week's flood event will be as bad is impossible to say but, sure as God, there will be one - there is one, now - and it won't be pleasant.

[jsachse]

I'm going to make every effort to be polite here but you do realize that 1) these things rarely happen in the midwest, and 2) the cities in question have existed for a very long time. Also, re: New Orleans. Your ignorance astounds me.
Posted by rdnicolai at 7:08 AM : Mar 21, 2009

I guess that would depend on your definition of "rarely happens". They're on a 100 year flood plain which means on average it floods every 100 years. If you look back at the records (http://nd.water.usgs.gov/floodtracking/charts/05054000_09020104.html) there was significant flooding in 1882, 1897, 1969 and 1997 on the Red River in Fargo.

If you build in a 100 year flood plain, I think you'd want to plan for a flood.

[rdnicolai]

I'm going to make every effort to be polite here but you do realize that 1) these things rarely happen in the midwest, and 2) the cities in question have existed for a very long time. Also, re: New Orleans. Your ignorance astounds me.

That is all.