You'll note that I didn't name this "North Dakota flood" or Red River flood"- This thing is huge! Looking at a Weather Service flood prediction map, I see severe flooding forecast from the western Dakotas to Michigan, and as far south as Missouri. All over the place, and in places we never expected, flood waters are rising higher to record levels; levels above the highest levees if they have any. More below the fold...
Fargo, North Dakota has become the poster boy of this flood. So far, the life or death battles of this flood have been fought on farmsteads and tiny hamlets with no flood control beyond what one can accomplish with an old farm tractor or a few old folks throwing sandbags. But Fargo scared me... And then today the crest forecast was bumped up by another foot!
And scared for good reason. Even Fargo's not quite so low twin on the Minnesota side of the river, Moorhead, is scared, and for good reason. At today's late afternoon press conference they announced plans to evacuate folks with special needs. North Dakota's emergency services office put up evacuation information on their web site. With a combined population of over 100,000 the Fargo-Moorhead metro area ain't New Orleans, but a breeched levee here is just or even more dangerous. And Fargo is especially scary- I had a look at a GIS map of the flood plain yesterday. Now at the originally forecast crest of 40 feet levee breaches would flood the city for several blocks in from the river as well as low lying areas on the south side of the city. The forecast has now been upped a foot to 41 feet, and the Weather Service suggests a range of 40 to 42 feet. At 42 feet what remains above water in Fargo becomes an island between the Red River, a smaller river to the west, and assorted lowland. On that Island could be trapped thousand of Fargo residents. They'd be the lucky ones- thousands could die from hypothermia, trapped in the barely above freezing water.
That's why we need to take these floods so seriously. If you can make it to the flooded area and help, please do. If not, please help spread the word and dredge up info to help fight this flood. In the best Kossack disaster tradition, lets keep this diary going and when it falls off the page, start up Flood Thread #2, etc.. I'm gonna go dredge up some info links and post them, in the meantime please join in and add what you can to this discussion.
National Weather Service flood website- http://www.weather.gov/...
Fargo website- http:////www.ci.fargo.nd.us/
Moorhead flood website- http://www.cityofmoorhead.com/...
Fargo Forum newspaper- http://www.inforum.com
KFGO radio, home station of Ed Schultz- http://kfgo.com