Water, water EVERYWHERE!

Well, there is a lot of water around here, but it is not everywhere. We are fortunate enough to live in a small town that does not experience a lot of flooding. However, the mighty Red River is exceeding its banks once again and it is quite a site to see. We can tell we are not native to the Grand Forks area because we find this whole flood thing interesting, exciting, and slightly ridiculous. Last I heard, the Red River is supposed to crest this weekend at approximately 51 feet, but the estimate changes so often that I could be wrong.

To give you an idea of what the flood is like, you can take a look at the live webcam at the following link:
http://www.ustream.tv/channel/grandforksherald-com

This webcam is set up in downtown Grand Forks, right next to the river. It looks across the River into East Grand Forks, MN. Grand Forks and East Grand Forks built a system of flood walls ("the invisible dike") after the devastating flood of 1997, so there is far less panic here than there is in cities like Fargo/Moorehead where there is no such system. There is also a lot less sandbagging! The webcam gives a good view of the walls. The walls are built to withstand a crest of 60 feet--a height we should not get close to this year. The silver part of the wall is placed in the permanent wall during flood season and the road and bridge are closed.

There are four bridges connecting GF and EGF, only one of which remains open during the flood. This makes traffic interesting, but thankfully we rarely need to cross the river, except on Sundays to get to church. Our trip to church took a little bit longer this past Sunday as the road we normally take was completely under water. We could barely see the top of the stop signs! I wish I had pictures, but no such luck...

Another interesting thing with this flood is that I-29 is closed between Grand Forks and Fargo, and just north of Manvel. Thankfully, this leaves open the stretch of interstate between Grand Forks and Manvel, so I am still able to make it into school. The aerial pictures of the interstate are quite interesting--it is completely covered with water... bizarre...

Hope everyone is enjoying spring! Summer will come soon enough (something I need to remind myself of frequently).

Darci