Last night, I went down town to look at the Red. This is the Sorlie Bridge (on Demers Ave), it was closed down yesterday morning. Across the river, the dikes have been put up and are being depended on to protect the town up to 60 feet of flooding. As of today, we are almost up to 50 feet and have been expected to crest around 54 feet next week. That was prior to getting almost a foot of snow in the last 48 hours!!
In a few minutes I will be going to help sandbag and hopefully work on building some dikes with a couple of guys from Air Force ROTC. Grand Forks is currently filling up as many sandbags as possible, because it is below freezing we can't put build the bags up because they will freeze. The city is working on having sandbagging go 24 hours a day, and have already set up a shelter at the Alerus Center. We have also been asked to try to conserve water over the next few days(which has been loaded with chlorine already to insure that it is safe to drink, yuck!)
My apartment is a ways away from the river, so I am not too worried about any flooding (even though I am on the bottom floor). Luckily, I have my parents pickup truck so if I need to leave town I will be able to pack up and head north to get around the river!
This is another picture from downtown. It is a marker along the Greenway that was built following the 1997 record flooding. The top line is where the river crested 13 years ago, we are expected to get close to passing that record this year. About half of the tower is already under water!Please pray for this area, I am sure it is going to get much worse for Fargo and possibly Grand Forks.
Jenna
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