By Erik Hare
The local news is heavy with reporting on the rising Red River at Fargo, North Dakota and Morehead, Minnesota. It’s a solid three-and-a-half hour drive away, but the story is as important to us as if it were much closer. Not only is this our state, it’s a condition we all have to worry about this time of year. The river valleys that carved our landscape and made it possible for the earliest settlers to come up this far can be very threatening when the snow starts to melt.
In Saint Paul, we don’t have any real worry. There will be some flooding on the Mississippi in Saint Cloud, but it’s not expected to be as much of a problem when it gets to us. We’re still vigilant, however, knowing full well that this is something we can expect every few years.
A lot of focus is on the recent development in the floodplain down by Shepard Road. These were actually built four feet outside of the 100-year floodplain, raised up on concrete foundations and tuck-under garages. It would take a big flood to damage these houses, but it looks precarious as the paths down along the Mississippi start to flood (pictured). They were designed to handle these kind of annual floods. We have experience dealing with the problem.
They have experience up in the Red River Valley, too. So far, the dikes and levees are holding and everyone is cautiously optimistic. The teams of people filling and placing sandbags are now resting and waiting, watching as the water level rises above the record of 1897.
Here in Saint Paul, the Mississippi is only starting to rise but we’re prepared all the same. It’s not going to be as nasty, certainly, but we did our best to build things to handle the days when the life bringing Father of Waters reaches out to embrace Saint Paul a little more closely than we might like. It’s OK.
As much as we love having a place where we can go down and, if we like, stick a toe in the water, we also know how to keep a proper distance from it. We are who and what and where we are because of the Mississippi, so we have to make peace with it. This time of year, that peace is tested a bit, but we're ready for what might come.
I was going to go down and look at the river yesterday but never made it. It looks high from here. I remember standing in one of the tuck under garages when they were being built. When I looked up I saw river. i was told they have an emergency evacuation plan in case something goes wrong.
I went to Moorehead on Thursday along with 340 other mostly high school kids. We worked throwing and filling sandbags bags all day. The water in the housing development we were working in just came up out of the ground and rose to over our boots in less than 6 hours. I was there in 97 and it was a cake walk compared to this year. I think the group of young adults and I threw somewhere between 4-5k sandbags that day. Crest was supposed to be somewhere between 41 and 42 feet. If it rises to over 42 the entire development of 26 new half million dollars home will be under water. It was “unreal”