Saturday, March 28, 2009

Floods ..... Floods ..... and more Floods!!!

So as many of you know we are up in crazy North Dakota where the snow never ends. Don't worry though we are 2 hours north of Bismarck and 4 hours Northwest of Fargo. The flooding that you are seeing all over the news has only affected us because we have deployed people from here to help sandbag. Now a little history.
In 1969 there was a really bad flood here very similar to what you are seeing in Fargo. The National Gaurd was brought in along with some engineers and they widened and rerouted the river that runs through the center of town. (keep in mind the reason why the disaster with flooding here are so huge is that we are a farming state so most of our cities are developed around the rivers banks) They are distributing sandbags here at the public works building for precaution and we have seen some flooding but it was purely due to all the snow in our yards and not because of the river. Hopefully we will continue to only have localized flooding ie. basements getting water through the foundations. However to alleviate concerns you will be happy to know if it does flood here we will be safe.
Minot is basically built around a valley and two hills. Most of the houses are up on the hills while some do ly in the valley by the river. We are up on one of the hills and out of the flood plain. Keep our state in your prayers, people are going to need all the help they can get. Thanks for all your concerns!
Recent picture of Bismarck flooding.
Recent picture of Fargo flooding.

Picture from the flood of 1969 in Minot.

4 comments:

Judy said...

I'm glad you kids are okay. That picture of the girls at the top of your blog is adorable. Good to check up on you.

The Schooley's said...

Seriously, we leave & all the fun begins. Not fair. So glad you guys are ok and hopefully the weather will chill out & stop throwing you guys curve balls!!

Meg and Terr said...

I totally forgot you guys are in North Dakota, we went to Fargo last Saturday to fill sand bags though. cool huh? I am glad you are not getting flooded

Laurie HF said...

The other reason for the flooding is that the area is so flat. The rivers don't have a lot of bank to climb - and the Red River and the Mouse (Souris) run north into un-thawed land. So of course, the water has nowhere to go, and the ground can't hold it because it's still frozen. The ground freezes down quite far in the winter and takes awhile to thaw. We're sure thinking about you. We were there in 1997 for the Grand Forks flood.