Flood Blogging 3/23/09 12:27 AM

As a way to settle my mind during this flood week, I'm going to blog. It may be once a day. It may be more. I see it as a psychological release like I used my exercise bike tonight as physical release.

To catch up anyone who doesn't know, the Red River Valley is one its way to record flooding. You can check the local newspaper or listento our biggest local radio station and there is even a group on facebook.

Whatever way you see the information, it all boils down to this. Saturated ground froze last fall, early and late snows with lots of moisture are melting and we are having rain storms. The result is major flooding earlier and faster than in anyone's memory. Flood fighting here is usually a mid-April event. This year it is a late March event. The NWS latest forecast (we get one or two a day) is for a crest late Thursday or early Friday between 39 - 41 feet. Flood stage here is 18 feet. The big, bad flood of 1997 was about 39.5 feet. And it took a while to get to that level. The current projection has the river going up about 7 feet between now and 7 pm. It doesn't start slowing down until Wednesday night and by then it is projected to be over 38 feet.

This has led to a massive effort by local, state and federal government plus thousands of volunteers from here and elsewhere you are pitching in to do as much as they can as fast as they can. My back keeps me away from sandbags so I've been volunteering at the phone center. It's called "Flood Central." We take calls for people asking where to volunteer and asking for volunteers. We have received calls from lots of folks from outside the region who are coming here to help. We have received calls from frightened homeowners who need to build a dike and have never done it before. We get calls of ice blocked culverts causing flooding. We get calls from volunteers at one site which is done and looking for another place to work. The phones rang this evening almost constantly. It really got busy after the local news started and the calls went out to call the volunteer line number (701-476-4000 for anyone local reading this). By the time it got to be 10 pm and they switched to the overnight workers for Firstlink that is running the operation we were all happy not to answer any more calls.

Tomorrow classes are being cancellled at MSUM starting at 10:30. I couldn't figure that out at first. Then I heard Concordia was doing the same. My only conclusion is that they want the students to get to campus first. This works as an explanatin given that the Moorhead site for volunteering is Nemzek Fieldhouse on the MSUM campus. Maybe they'll have the profs just march the students from the classrooms directly to the fieldhouse an put them to work. I wouldn't be surprised if the same thing occurs on Tuesday. The young able bodies of college students are needed. In Fargo alone, the projection I mention previously means that the city will need 900,000 more sandbags than they first thought and they first thought they needed 1.5 million sandbags. Plus, those sandbags will have to be turned in dikes.

It is a helluva way to end Spring Break.

My mind is settling toward sleep now. I'm sure I'll be early to listen to the radio and try to figure out how much I should do at my office before getting back to "Flood Central." I'll try to update here when I can during the day.

If you are far away and want to help, you can make a donation at http://www.impactgiveback.org/
The first $25,ooo given will be matched and all the money will stay local to help with the flood fight an the recovery effort.