| The
Associated Press
National
Guard soldiers helped pile sandbags today as rivers fed
by melting snow and rain rose quickly in Minnesota and the
Dakotas.
The
focus of attention Sunday was the Red River, which flows
northward between North Dakota and Minnesota and caused
devastating flooding four years ago in Grand Forks, N.D.
Guard
soldiers helped with security, rescues and evacuations at
Breckenridge, Minn., where the river was at 16 feet and
expected to crest at 19 feet during the middle of the week.
Flood stage is 10 feet but the city is protected by a system
of dikes and pumps.
South
of Breckenridge, guardsmen stacked sandbags at the tiny
town of Dumont, as the Lake Traverse reservoir rose toward
the town.
“What
I am hearing is that the effort really saved the town,”
said National Guard Lt. Col. Denny Shields.
On the
North Dakota side of the Red River, Fargo Mayor Bruce Furness
put the city's flood-protection plans into high gear Sunday
and said work would begin immediately on an earthen dike
to keep the river out the downtown district.
The
goal was to build the dike high enough to protect Fargo
against 36 feet of water, the crest the National Weather
Service forecast for Thursday or Friday. Flood stage is
17 feet and the river was at just over 27 feet Sunday night.
Grand
Forks officials issued a new flood warning Sunday afternoon
as the Red River rose past 36 feet there, up more than 4
feet since Saturday morning and on its way to a forecasted
crest of 43 to 45 feet.
However,
the city had already been shoring up its dike system, which
protects to a river level of 50 feet, said city spokeswoman
Christine Page Diers.
Grand
Forks did not have that dike system during the devastating
flood of 1997, when much of the city had to be evacuated
and hundreds of homes were lost.
The
Red River and others streams in the Upper Midwest were being
filled by rapidly melting snow and heavy rain dumped by
a storm that swept across the region Saturday.
Watertown,
S.D., collected 2.27 inches of rain Saturday and about 250
families left their homes as a precaution against high water
on the Big Sioux River. They were allowed back Sunday morning
as the river started receding. National Guard members also
had been sent to help out there.
Other
rivers in eastern South Dakota were still rising, including
the James River, which was 6 feet over flood stage at Huron.
New dikes were expected to spare the town from a repeat
of its 1997 flooding.
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