After reading Kristen Daum’s “Impact of Flooding” piece in Sunday’s Forum, she pretty well convinced me that what I and many who are less than sold on Fargo and Mayor Walaker’s Red River Diversion project have suspected —there’s a whole lot more to just “saving the people of the valley” their homeland.
Oh, sure, there’s the concern about displacing small companies like –oh, Case Holland or DMI or Sander’s Machine and Welding or Butler Machine —but those are all small potatoes in the world of Microsoft and Blue Cross –Blue Shield of North Dakota. Not to mention, most of the former companies named are not in the fire line to be washed away should a massive moving Red River overflow its banks. Microsoft? Possibly. Blue Cross, nah – probably not. Not unless 13th Avenue starts backing up like it used to do —and in the old days, it didn’t take a lot of hard rain coming down for much more than a few hours and we could pretty much bank on 13th Avenue being flooded to halfway up the wheels on your basic sedan. I remember one summer Saturday back in 1977, we got a rain so hard that I could not take my Pinto out to 13th Avenue for fear of floating away! A friend of mine had to come get me in his pick-up so I could get to work. That happened a lot during that winter, too. I lived on 32nd Street South, and to say the least, it was rarely plowed –especially at 6 a.m. I worked at Hector Airport back in those days and that was one very challenging winter to get from my apartment out to the airport.
Back to the subject of the Diversion, and all the reasons for building it versus the reasons for not building it. Granted, I did not grow up here and have little knowledge of the Red River’s flooding prior to 1997. But we have lived here since 1982. Have we had more than four major floods? Beginning in 1997, then, we had a good eleven-year stretch without flooding —then the other shoe dropped and for three years we were swamped. Is there more I’ve forgotten, perhaps?
Since the past three floods, both Fargo and Moorhead have removed hundreds of homes and built levees. Driving down 4th Street South in Moorhead is awful! I miss seeing all the homes once lining the top of the river banks. Yes, it was prudent and necessary. And that’s made Moorhead safer. The homes removed on south River Drive in Fargo fell to the same fate. What I don’t understand is how anyone can know or even suggest that “eventually IT IS GOING TO HAPPEN,” as so many seem to believe that the Red River will definitely take out all or most of Fargo if a diversion is not built. Why – because it happened to Minot and to Grand Forks? If that’s the thinking, then isn’t every major city sitting on the banks of any river in the country at risk? Shouldn’t they also be building diversions?
Instead of building a billion-plus dam, why not build walls around Blue Cross –Blue Shield, Microsoft and Sanford? It might not be really pretty, but it sure would be a heckuva lot cheaper! Not to mention it would mean hundreds of residents who would like to determine for themselves whether to move or sell out or stay, and not feel as though they are being thrown out as the proverbial sacrificial lambs.
As for Moorhead: next time we have a flood and our city leaders decide we need to build a $750 THOUSAND DOLLAR sand-bagging machine, do you think we could at least have a company in Moorhead build it? The last one was designed by a Fargo company, built by a Fargo company, and the majority of baggers hired were from Fargo. No offense to Fargo, but if you don’t mind, I’d prefer to keep our tax dollars in Moorhead.
As for the diversion that some believe must be built, my understanding is it will be at least ten good years before it is ever finished. So, what’s the plan in the meantime —like between next year and whenever this mammoth circle is to be completed? Should we all invest in wet suits and row boats? Maybe any new home south of 32nd Avenue in Fargo should just build a dock instead of laying concrete for a driveway? Or why not build homes on stilts, as they do on the east coast of the Carolinas and Georgia? That would eliminate more home basements from being flooded out for certain. Or how about building a forty-foot steel retaining dike from the west at Horace to, say, all the way to the river and call it WALAKER’S WALL? Who knows, it might actually work!
Ten years from beginning to completion. That’s the approximate time it will take the diversion planned to be finished. And in the meantime….punt or pray. That’s pretty much how the people in Oxbow and Hickson and all those living north of Fargo-Moorhead feel.
MOORHEAD’S HAVING A VARROOM-ROOOOM RALLY!!
Load up your girl and head on over to the Moorhead Mall (east side parking
lot) every 2nd Thursday of the summer for viewing the valley’s spectacular motorcycles! There will be food and drink vendors, people galore and every generation of motorcycles from brand new to vintage to view! Mark your calendars for the first annual Moorhead Motorcycle Rally on Thursday, May 10th.
***REMINDERS***
Don’t forget!! BENEFIT FOR RON FELIX on APRIL 29 from 2-7 p.m., at the TEAMSTERS HALL; bring your donation and dancing shoes! Live music to boogie on down!
Moorhead TOWN HALL MEETING, April 30 at the Hjemkomst. INPUT WANTED about what you want to see continued, changed, developed, managed better, more accessible in your city! Now’s the time to speak up! For start time call 299-5103.
Send all comments and questions to Soo at: sooasheim@aol.com
All editorial letters should be sent with your first and last name, the city you live in, and a phone number we can call to verify you wrote it.