Signs of the Red River Going Down: Grand Forks, ND

Obey all signs!

The river has now declined to 44.79 feet, from last week's high point of 49.5 feet.

Isn't it great when you've got good friends who get into serving as "scouts" for you to spot photo opportunities?

My wonderful friend, Sheila, told me that she'd seen these signs now peeking out of the water, as she went over the Kennedy Bridge.

The Kennedy Bridge is still the only open bridge between Grand Forks and East Grand Forks. Sheila drove back and forth, (unbelievably patiently!) while I tried to get shots of the signs in the water.

We'll have another crest in a week or so, and then hopefully return to normal.

Fargo, ND: Build a Permanent Dike!

Seriously, it's so much better spending the days in this God-awful wintery April, building things like this out of snow, than sweating out the rise of the river. Of course we're anxious about the river in Grand Forks, but it's "left-over" anxiety, triggered by our memories of '97, rather than any kind of imminent danger of flooding from the river.

The family that created the incredible Halloween display this year in their front yard has now transformed the snow, with the help of a little food coloring, into this majestic snow sculpture. Look at the size of this thing!

There may be unease in Grand Forks right now, and a certain amount of restlessness, knowing that a 2nd river crest will come but we don't have to be in desperate survival-mode. A $417 million permanent dike buys a lot of peace of mind! Our cities (Grand Forks and East Grand Forks, on the ND and MN sides) went through the grueling recovery process that was much, much longer than we had dreamed it would be. We were told it would take 5 years to "recover" and I thought this was an outrageous amount of time. But it did take 5 years to recover from a flood that nearly erased our zip codes! And it wasn't all "Kumbaya. . . we-shall-overcome" cooperation either. People fought with each other, made accusations, pointed their fingers, stomped and hollered. . . and mainly grieved. But eventually there was agreement to proceed with the dike project, and agreement to take on our own taxes and assessments, along with federal and state funds, to build this project.

Now, looking back, it just seems that it would have been wonderful if we could have skipped the flood, skipped the fires that also broke out in the downtown on Day 2 of our own personal Horror Show, skipped shipping our children off to far away states and schools while we stayed behind to deal with the smell and the chaos, the lack of electricity and water for weeks on end . . . and built permanent protection before the flood!

With children, we want to warn them about things so that they can learn from our experiences, to save them the anguish of our mistakes, but sometimes they just have to learn for themselves.And the truth is, children NEED to learn for themselves. I SO hope it doesn't have to be the same way for Fargo, ND.

The River Crested in Grand Forks! 49.5 feet, and falling

It's a good day in the neighborhood! The Red River of the North officially crested yesterday, at 49.5 feet, and is now falling. We're suppose to have a 2nd crest in a few weeks, but the expectation is that the worst is over (except for that wild card that Mother Nature can dish out from time to time.) Soon, we may be able to reopen bridges!

To celebrate, I consulted The Beautiful Miss Bonnie on a book review. Actually, Bonnie is the 2nd tier reviewer, because first Becky brought this book to my attention back at Christmas time. First-off, there's nothing as scary in this book as ShameWoe:( Vince the Bad. Bonnie scrutinized this book carefully, and gives it four paws up a tail-wag and drool. . . . very high marks indeed! It's a book of short stories by Stephen King, Just After Sunset, and she really liked the first story, "Willa," set in a creepy old train depot, but "The Gingerbread Girl" was her favorite. All the stories held her interest to the end, but Bonnie suggested that the last one, A Very Tight Place," is more gross-out than anything. But extremely Stephen King-ish gross out.




And because Bonnie did such a great job with this review, and because many of you urged me not to blame ShamWow! for ShameWoe:( Vince's behavior , I decided to give ShamWow! one more very cautious chance. (Mandy said," Remember, its not the product's fault. Its still a good sham wow, right?" and Jeanne said, "Remember it's not fair to blame the "kids" for the "adults'" mistakes.") Bonnie is personally testing out ShamWow!s suitability for a picnic.

Emergency Response Team: Flood Control in Grand Forks, ND; 2009 contingency plan to the dikes

The level of the river is reading 49.22 feet at this point, and we've been getting plenty of snow here in Grand Forks today. Time to have the emergency crew standing by:

Super Bonnie in her ShamWow! Cape, at the Ready

See? I'm on theme today: "Ways to Save."

Yesterday's attempt to break up the ice jam near Oslo, MN, with a wrecking ball, didn't work. Apparently, Winnepeg has a machine which is like a backhoe that gets driven on the ice, and chomps it up. Kind of like a giant Pac-man, only different. I bet there's some guys who would fight over who'd get to operate that machine!