The “Second crest” never came…no rain for two weeks, so river crest predictions kept dropping until, in fact, it would never get about 35’. I spent a few hours volunteering to sandbag a colleague’s at 3rd St. S. in Moorhead but, as it turned out, they didn’t need it. To get to the house I had to weave around 6’ high clay piles, “contingency dikes” laid in the middle of streets. If the primary dike failed, some houses would be flooded, but the street dikes would protect the rest of the neighborhoods.
So in the end, Fargo-Moorhead only received vague damage. Despite the world’s media in town filming the dike and helicopter in hopes, I suppose, that the place would be swamped and they cold rubberneck about the poor folk in Fargo. But this is not Katrina—lots of time to get away—and the folks here are a lot more solid than the flaky folks from New Orleans who, instead of maybe trying to help, hid in their attics, raced to the sports arena or looted empty businesses while blaming the government.
Well, okay, different kind of disaster. But while Fargo may be bland, and its people staid, they don’t get all worked up over natural disasters, either. Heck, we are living in a sort of natural disaster in the Upper Midwest.
So university professors are scrambling to make up two missed weeks—Valley City State, sewer backup city, canceled the semester and will continue on-line only. It’s been a wet year.
—April 19, 2009, Fargo
OtD 