April 1997 Flashbacks

[CatholicEdHead]

I am sure I am not the only one who is having some deja-vu flashbacks to 1997 when I see the New Orleans flood.

Even this far away it still feels like being back in Grand Forks during the flood and fire. New Orleans TV is just like WDAZ was back in April 1997.

Of course the scale is much, much, larger with a huge loss of life unlike the RRV valley flood.

[wellstone dem]

1. I was thinking the same thing

especially seeing flames surrounded by water

[Qanisqineq]

2. I was living in Fargo at the time

I remember people being rescued from their roof by helicopters. I also knew people that died when overland flooding took out a road further west (in LaMoure county). My parents had to deal with flooding from the James River. They had to take a boat to their house and the big worry was keeping the huge blocks of ice from hitting the sandbags and then losing the house. My dad and some close friends had to stay up 24 hours a day and make sure the pumps kept going (they were running off of generators -- remember the ice storm that took out power lines for hundreds of miles?)

What would ND and Minnesota have done without the National Guard??? I was in college at NDSU and many classes were cancelled (or showing up optional) so people could sandbag and because many students were in the NG. I worked at a fast food place and remember FEMA and the NG coming in and giving away free food to sandbaggers.

Wow. It was such a scary time and the memories bring tears to my eyes.

[Kolesar]

3. They did a great documentary on that on TLC or the Discovery Channel

I remember the electrical fire, too. According to an NPR story, the number of divorces and the crime rate went up after that. There must have been thousands of careers and lives ruined.

How are they now?

[dbackjon]

4. How was the FEMA response then?

Some ReThug from North Dakota is saying on another board I visit that it was awful.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

5. That's my question too, North Dakotans

Having been down on the Mississippi Gulf Coast last month and seeing how bad the devastation was and how slow FEMA has been to do anything, I have to ask: what was the federal response like in Grand Forks?

I was living in Oregon at the time, so it was hardly local news for me.

Do you feel that the feds came through in a timely manner to rescue, feed, and house people whose homes were destroyed? Did locals think that FEMA did a good job?

[AmericanErrorist]

6. Here's something from Wikipedia, for all that it's worth

The National Weather Service (NWS) had a long-standing forecast for the river to crest at 49 feet (14.9 m), which was the river's highest level during the 1979 flood. The cities had been able to get their dikes to this level, but the river continued to rise past it, to the astonishment of the NWS (which didn't upgrade its forecast until April 16, the day the river actually reached 49 feet).

...The 5-foot (1.5 m) discrepancy between the actual crest and that which the NWS had predicted led to widespread anger among locals, especially since the citizens of both cities reached and even slightly surpassed the NWS's level of protection through weeks of hard work. This anger was most famously expressed by a local resident's devastated home having the words "49 feet my ass" smeared on the exterior. The Service has since revised their method of forecasting spring floods.

Several local schools were destroyed, prompting the construction of replacements. Because construction was not finished on most of these schools until the end of 1998, hundreds of students spent a year and a half of school in temporary locations ranging from churches to FEMA-constructed temporary metal buildings, known by locals as "tin bins." Numerous city buildings were also damaged, especially in East Grand Forks, where the flood-ravaged downtown area had been home to the city hall and the public library.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_River_Flood%2C_1997

[Odin2005]

7. I have the scenes of the flood etched in my brain.

My Dad's apartment in Moorhead got flooded. I can't watch disaster shows with foodls wthout getting flashbacks.

[Logiola]

8. i remember driving thru on my way to Minneapolis (from winnipeg)

and seeing hundreds, if not thousands of those trailers.. still sticks in my heads, luckily it did not get as bad this year..