let's get it started

everywhere i looked today there were words, articles, signs, conversations, commercials about the impending flood. the forum (local newspaper) has an article about the 90% chance of major flooding in fargo. a guy i used to work with in columbus sent me an article that was on bloomberg news about the upcoming flood in fargo (and a brief summary of last years flood). my parents and i watched a food network challenge (cereal bridges 2 or something like that) and a fargo environmental artist was on and built the fargo veterans memorial bridge and had it flooding in honor of last year's flood (the episode was filmed sometime in 2009).

in addition, today (technically this is written late friday night), my mom and i looked at a storage unit my dad found in north fargo. i will be moving my belongingings to a cement box (so sad!) tomorrow morning with the help of my brother and father. i should actually be going to bed right now so i can get up at 6am to start going through boxes. i was going to do that tonight, but i got tired and fell asleep on the couch. so i'm hitting the sack instead. and writing this.

in honor of the upcoming, dreaded flood, i pulled out another post i started last year (during the flood i started archiving articles about the flood and in may i tried putting a summary together but i was traveling, so it got put off) and thought i would publish it now - as a record of last year's flood. so here it is. enjoy...

------------------------------------------------------------------

for the past few months, i have been compiling articles and videos about floyd the flood. starting in march 2009, the red river valley was attacked by an unfriendly and unyielding amount of water. the heavy snowfall during the winter, combined with rainstorms right when the weather began warming the ground amounted to an unprecedented amount of water in our flat river valley.

i’m actually extremely glad that i was in fargo the past few months. it was really scary and if i had been somewhere else reading about the news, i would’ve been very stressed out wherever i was living - worrying about friends and family here in the valley. and i would’ve been incredibly frustrated speaking with my father who never worries about anything and then hearing stories about evacuating the hospital from my mother.

videos
i've embedded some excellent videos from youtube showing exactly what went on in fargo during the sandbagging efforts.

• this video shows a time lapse of volunteers sandbagging in the fargodome - my family and i went to the fargodome on multiple occasions to help out. this is what we were a part of:

• this video is a compilation of news reports, newspaper headlines, pictures, and videos set to a montage. its very awe inspiring to think of what this community did. it shows people working overnight, through the snow, the rising water levels, etc.

• this video is of ireporters from cnn. more shots of people sandbagging.

• the video in this article doesn't work anymore, but it gives details about the height of the river.
• don't forget some humor when looking at all of this. check out this link to the daily show's coverage of the flood.

articles

• cnn has an excellent collection of pictures about the flood here
• the nyt wrote a good article about a community in minnesota evacuating in this article
• alcohol sales rose with the red
• evacuations after cracks in the dikes (called levees by the national media)
• keeping yourself safe during the flood

global warming articles
the flood brought to attention the issues of climate change and a few bloggers picked up on our efforts

• moue magazine's article on global warming - i commented! check them out here
• another article i was turned on to that references floyd the flood
  

awesome
and finally, an article i really liked by a guy who used to live in fargo (if i remember correctly) helping people to visualize the amount of sand needed (again, if i remember correctly). its pretty cool - here.

i pasted this video a long time ago, but its worth watching - its about the water flow and how dangerous it can be...

what are your memories from floyd the flood of 2009?

[let's get it started is a song by b.e.p. and also a different song by mc hammer (according to my itunes listing). i picked it as the title for this blog because its full of videos and articles of people getting it started...]