Updates on ND/MN flooding, dike breached@school, river dropping but beware still

[uppityperson]

Oak Grove is a park I played in a lot as a kid (I moved away from Fargo yrs back, live in WA now). It is down by the river, in one of the loops/bends of the river. Again, please realize that the area is FLAT. The Red River valley is the bottom of the huge Lake Agassiz lake bed. What ups and downs there are are minimal, with most of them happening by rivers, or from where rivers used to be. Those rivers cut through the lake bed, meandering around, looping a lot, because it is so flat. On the positive and really neat side, the area is great for growing things and the soil is black. Very black.

Oak Grove School is also down in the dip by the river, but not down at the bottom like the park is. They used to flood all the time, and permanent dikes were built. They have a cool sliding door thing, rather like a castle porticullus, to put in place pre-flood. The permanent dike failed.

Even though the water is receeding (and may it continue to do so, oh crap. Temp is 31 and more snow is on the way) the dikes will need to hold for another week until the water drops down lower.

http://www.inforum.com/event/article/id/235700

A permanent dike at Oak Grove Lutheran School in Fargo has been breached, allowing water from the flooding Red River to pour into two of the school's buildings and force an evacuation of a support group monitoring the school's flood situation.

Bruce Messelt, president of Oak Grove, said water began pouring into the lower level of Benson Hall and eventually reached the Scheels Center for the Performing Arts. He said the full extent of the flooding was not known as of early Sunday, but he said up to four of the five buildings on campus were at risk for water damage. "Obviously, we're devestated by the impact this will have on our school," said Messelt.

Joel Swanson, a teacher at the school, said he was a member of a dike-watch team at the school about 1:15 a.m. when someone spotted water leaking from beneath a panel of the school's permanent floodwall. He said despite efforts to seal the leak with sandbags the river quickly ate away the soil beneath the wall and water began pouring into the lower level of Benson Hall. Swanson said volunteers attempted to stem the tide by sandbagging the stairwell, but the water quickly swamped that barrier as well. "Basically, we tried to sandbag the stairwells to make sure we could keep the water in, but water is an amazing thing," said Swanson, who teaches earth science.

The City of Fargo has issued a press release saying that a Code Red has been sent out advising residents between the Oak Grove campus and Elm Street to plug their sewer drains and monitor their basements. The city is not ordering an evacuation....

River is on the right, that is where the park is also.



http://www.inforum.com/event/article/id/235704/group/home/

FARGO – The failure of a permanent dike early this morning at Oak Grove Lutheran School, resulting in the loss of two buildings, serves as a reminder that fight against the Red River’s floodwaters is far from over.

By: Steven Wagner, INFORUM

FARGO – The failure of a permanent dike early this morning at Oak Grove Lutheran School, resulting in the loss of two buildings, serves as a reminder that fight against the Red River’s floodwaters is far from over. The Red River, which appears to have crested at 40.82 feet Saturday, continues its slow decline. The river stood at 40.15 feet at 8:15 this morning.

“Are we ready to say there is a crest? Probably,” Fargo Mayor Dennis Walaker said. “We want to monitor it the rest of the day.” However, the river is expected to remain high – perhaps above 38 feet for the next week – and Fargo and Cass County encouraged all able-bodied sandbaggers to turn out today at the Fargodome.

Fargo used a third of its 300,000 sandbags on standby Saturday in its constant fight to plug leaks in approximately 49 miles of levees protecting the city. Flood fight leaders said they’d like to produce 500,000 sandbags today as it could see the stock currently on hand used up quickly for leaking dikes.

Keeping the streets open for dikers and emergency crews
http://www.inforum.com/event/article/id/235708/group/home/

FLOOD UPDATE: Fargo mayor encourages 'nonessential' businesses to stay closed today
FARGO - Officials here are encouraging nonessential businesses to remain closed through Monday. According to Mayor Dennis Walaker, "essential" businesses are gas stations, grocery stores, restaurants, hardware stores and necessary medical supply stores.

By: Staff report, INFORUM

FARGO - Officials here are encouraging nonessential businesses to remain closed through Monday. According to Mayor Dennis Walaker, "essential" businesses are gas stations, grocery stores, restaurants, hardware stores and necessary medical supply stores.

http://www.areavoices.com/springflood/?blog=47260

ND Health Dept. coordinates deployment of federal medical stations

BISMARCK – At the direction of Gov. John Hoeven, the North Dakota Department of Health is coordinating the deployment of two Federal Medical Stations (FMS) that will receive and care for people with special medical needs in the event they are evacuated from Fargo, according to State Health Officer Terry Dwelle, M.D.

As part of the state’s comprehensive response to flooding, the Department of Health requested the FMS from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. One station is located at Jamestown College in Jamestown, N.D., and the other is located at the University of Mary in Bismarck, N.D. People who don’t need hospitalization but who have medical issues and need to be supported will be cared for at the Federal Medical Stations.

“Many people with special medical needs are not in hospitals or nursing homes but are cared for at home,” Dwelle said. “They may rely on home health care or are dependent on oxygen or have other medical needs. In an emergency, it’s important that they continue to receive care if they need to evacuate. These medical stations will help us meet their needs.”

If people with special medical needs choose to evacuate now from Fargo, they should go to the Schollander Pavillion at the Red River Valley Fairgrounds in West Fargo, where a federal medical team will assess each person’s medical needs. From there, individuals will be sent to either the Jamestown FMS or the Bismarck FMS. The sites will be staffed by federal medical personnel sent with the FMS, as well as volunteer medical personnel from North Dakota. Both sites are expected to be operational sometime Sunday, March 29, 2009.

[jkshaw]

1. Thank you for this update, Uppity

[uppityperson]

2. Clay County, Moorhead, MN, etc news

Sorry MN, I missed this above, you get your own post
http://www.inforum.com/event/article/id/235711/group/home/

OAKPORT TOWNSHIP, Minn. — Bonnie Swanson spotted good news a split second after landing from her jump off the National Guard truck that had taken her to her flooding neighborhood. “Hey, the light is on in the garage. We have electricity,” she announced. Just inside the door, she was further reassured by the sounds of a running furnace and a humming sump pump.

But her smile froze when her husband, Rocky, and her brother, Dave Gustafson, reported from the basement that water was bubbling through the floor and the sump was struggling because a hose was partially frozen. But damage was held to a minimum. After about 90 minutes of scurrying, they had three electric sumps operating at full throttle. The basement was drained, and the foot-high seepage between their sandbag dike and home had been lowered, stopping the tiny fountain on their basement floor. They got the generator running, providing insurance in case the neighborhood lost power.

(clip)

Most Oakport residents were evacuated Thursday evening after strong urgings to leave by members of the Coast Guard and Clay County Sheriff’s Department. They weren’t allowed back into their homes until Saturday afternoon and only with Minnesota National Guard truck or boat escorts.
(clip)


The evacuations came at a time widely regarded as the worst in the Fargo-Moorhead flood fight. Some Oakport residents ignored pleas to leave and kept the water out of their homes. Rocky was among Saturday’s returners who wished they had never left. “If we had someone here checking the sumps and handling the seepage, this wouldn’t have happened,” he said, before proclaiming that he wasn’t leaving his home again. Their neighbors weren’t as fortunate. Across the street, one family had 5 feet of water in their basement, and another had it up to the basement rafters. Mark Appell returned to a water-filled basement that was dry when he left. “With the amount of seepage we were getting behind our dikes, we knew it was only a matter of time before our basement would fill,” he said. “My wife (Kristi) and I didn’t have the energy to do it anymore.

(clip)

Whether dry or flooded, Oakport residents drew comfort from reports that the Red has crested here, at least temporarily. Officials preferred to call it a “peak,” citing that the river could reach a second crest with snowmelt and precipitation from another storm that could hit early in the week. But spirits were lifted by the steadily declining river gauge reading and anecdotal reports of less overland flooding.

To find the river, look for a line of trees. Many places there is also a white snakey looking thing which is the iced over river.

[uppityperson]

3. More picts and an aerial slideshow. Brrrrrrrrrrr

http://www.inforum.com/event/slideshows/tag/slide%20shows/

Again, look for the river by finding a winding line of trees or white snaky frozen part. Notice that streets between houses are typically lower than the houses also. In a couple pictures you can see the water and ice flows in the streets.




Farm rescue. "This aerial photo provided by the U.S. Coast Guard and made from a Coast Guard rescue helicopter shows a small boat, center, used by the Coast Guard to transport six people and two dogs to a platform after the Red River flooded the Fargo area Wednesday March 25, 2009. The Coast Guard later hoisted the flood victims via helicopter to safety."

[uppityperson]

4. Picture of floodwall that was breached.

Workers labor at the site of where a steel wall was undermined by flood water at Oak Grove Lutheran school Sunday, March 29, 2009, in Fargo, N.D. The bloated Red River briefly breached a dike early Sunday, pouring water into the school campus and the mayor called it a "wake-up call" for a city that needs to be vigilant for weaknesses in levees that could give way at any time. Crews managed to largely contain the flooding to the school campus, preventing more widespread damage in nearby areas.


more picts at http://www.inforum.com/event/photogallery/id/1518/

Realize that they are NOT talking a 40 ft high wall of water, but just enough to flood the buildings and make a real mess, a cold wet mess, of things. Not life threatening, but causing damage.

[Odin2005]

5. Phew, it's going down fast then I was expecting!

[uppityperson]

6. Yea!!!! I would say stay warm, but will stick with stay dry.

Stay cold there for another week first. Then when the water drops, slowly warm up.

Glad it is dropping and hoping things continue to improve.

[EFerrari]

7. Thanks again for keeping us updated.

:hi:

[backscatter712]

8. I'm glad the destruction isn't worse.

Still quite a bit of destroyed houses, not to mention that school, but I'm under the impression the flooding could have been far worse.

Let's hope the water level continues to go down.