Saturday, March 6, 2010

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...]

4 comments:

  1. Memories? Yes I have several. The enormity of it all is hard to understand unless you were here.
    A couple other things that were not mentioned in the above articles:
    1. All Nursing Homes, Assisted Living Facilities and Group Homes for the Mentally Handicapped were evacuated to other cities through out the Dakotas and Minnesota. What a challenge. Many of these people required ambulances to transport them to their temporary homes. My mother, came to my house. My aunt went to live with my sister. Both are in assisted living facilities.
    2. The hospital I work at closed to ambulances and elective procedures. My department, the Day Unit, a pre-surgical center, was closed. The staff volunteered for 12 hour shifts to stay at the hospital to assist with evacuation, should that become necessary. I was on the first shift....a 7 PM to 7 AM shift. I was there just over an hour when we were notified that we were going to evacuate. Staff was called in to assist with the evacuation. It was my job to assign the incoming staff to what their role would be. We had ambulances from all over lined up for blocks, waiting to take patients out. We had helicopters taking Neonatal babies to other facilities. And we had a bus take ambulatory patients to a Minneapolis Hospital. I think we were closed for a little over a week.
    3. And finally, another memory. The Feds came in. They wanted the cities of Fargo-Moorhead evacuated. Our mayor...Denny Walaker, refused. It was his belief that it was the people of Fargo Moorhead who were going to save the city, build the dikes, do dike patrol, etc. He was right. And because of last year, we are better prepared this year.

    ReplyDelete
  2. yes, but "comment comment comment comment commment" doesn't answer my question...

    ReplyDelete
  3. all valid points that i had forgotten about. it's amazing how this community just goes with the flow (pun semi-intended).

    ReplyDelete