Goose River Floods

I remember putting on my rubber barn boots & grabbing a shovel, heading down by the banks of the Goose River between Mayville and Portland, right there on North Dakota Highway 200 by the park.

Goose River flooding homes in Mayville, ND

Several homes and businesses have taken on water in Mayville as the Goose River spills out of its banks, according to the Traill County Sheriff’s Office. Capt. Steve Hunt said the flooding began late morning and early afternoon Tuesday along Highway 200 at the bottom of a hill in Mayville. The flooded buildings included a city shop, three businesses and four homes, he said. “At least two of them have a foot of water on the main floor,” he said. The city planned to shore up sandbags around its water plant, he said.
Mike Nowatzki, Forum report 3/25/09 Forum newsroom
Posted by: floodblogger on 3/25/2009 at 8:59 AM |

The situation in the Red River Valley this year is a flash-back to 1997, when a late ice-storm slowed down the snowmelt saving Fargo from the Flood of the Century and dooming Grand Forks. The Forum is reporting today:

About 3 inches of snow had fallen by 7 a.m. in the metro area, and the National Weather Service predicts 5 to 8 inches total from Fargo north to Grand Forks before the storm diminishes this evening.

I’m following flood info & river levels on Twitter, too. Not much I can do from 200 miles away, but maybe it will put those old memories in perspective. Be prepared out there.

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Edit: Steve Gunderson has posted a great photo album from the Goose River flooding at Mayville-Portland on his home page. The photo below is a greenhouse we helped get going when I worked for Traill County. The owner is a great guy, but maybe I should have worked harder with him to find a safer location. Shoulda, coulda, woulda….

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Edit2: MPR Reports: “Small towns around rising Red fighting too” (Hendrum, Perley, Halstad, Shelly, on the Minnesota side of the Red River Valley) 
 http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2009/03/30/hendrum_flood
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