Fargo Flood 2009 - We come TOGETHER

Here some reflections of the Fargo flood community effort. I assembled video clips I took and added pictures and some appropriate music by Moya Brennan:

Things are under control here in Fargo. The river is on it's way down. Thank you everyone for your great concern and prayer. Most are safe, with dry basements!

There was great community participation and organization here, a step ahead of what I remember of flood control during my youth. Fargo expects a flood every year, but this year had an unusual fall flood, lots of snow, and now some strange spring weather. There was a huge "thunder and lighting" storm last week followed by a blizzards, then days of snow flurries. Now it is snowing once again.

I worked with volunteers that came all the way from Wisconsin and a newly immigrant family from the Ukraine. It was something to see the Fargodome (60T seat stadium) filled with worker ants and heavy machinery filling and delivering sandbags. The bags were small enough that all kinds of people could get involved in long lines to deliver them around the the homes. Everywhere else heavy equipment work around the clock to raise the dikes. Some school playing fields were "quarried" for quickly needed secondary dikes, some 10' x 10'.

As usual, the media over dramatized our plight as a great disaster. There has been little loss of life. There has been two heart attacks from older guys like myself working to hard, and a critical injury from a traffic accident. There actually has been very little complete lose of property. A hospital, a nursing home and several neighborhoods have been evacuated for precautionary concerns. Most of those evacuated return home daily to reinforce the dikes and pump water seeping into their lower levels. Two of my friends in one of those evacuate neighborhoods are still completely dry. Most flood plane structures were long ago demolish. Many of the buildings shown on the news are park structures in the recreation areas of the flood plan.

Everyone is still vigilant, ready to respond to any breaches in the 48 miles of flood protection. If you check some the pictures, you will see everyone quite upbeat. Fargo is a great community and a good place to live!

Category:

Travel & Events

Tags:

• Fargo
• Flood
• ND
• North Dakota
• Community

[Ucfspencer]

look up the song Red River of the North by Rogue Valley (google search)

[AppaJohn]

@Ucfspencer Nice Song!... Sorry it took a year to respond.

[Ucfspencer]

@AppaJohn yeah the song is about the flooding of that river i think i wanted to make a video with it but i didnt have any footage of the river

[pizzaflys]

let me guess you sat on your butt while everyone sandbagged to save your house and your possesions. if you have a problem you should come and talk to all the people that live in fargo and had to deal with the flood

[sr5se]

nice video. great emotion. staying in Fargo in March was one of those times i won't forget. the children especially were the hardest working i've ever seen.

[MrBrandoSkates]

yeah.. cuz flooding is just hillarious.

:/

[jocelyn4294]

haha flood!

[NeuroticNightmares07]

What a ride this year was! Great video! It was weird seeing the drive I made numerous times to the dome through the video but whatever... lol

[Sportymike]

Absolutely wonderful video and beautiful music.