So life has been pretty crazy here for the last few weeks. The National Weather Service started coming out a couple weeks ago and predicting a record flood for where I live here in Fargo, ND. As the days went by, the projected crest kept getting higher and higher, and calls for sandbaggers began to grow more and more urgent. On Tuesday, I went to help some of my friends sandbag their homes to protect them against the rising river, which was starting to get pretty scary already. So far I believe both of these homes have continued to survive, but are still in danger.
Thankfully, the crest appears to have happened already at just under 41 feet (the worst case scenario had risen to 43 feet!). It is still the highest water level ever recorded in Fargo, and there are still calls for urgency in maintaining the dikes. However, people are starting to have hope that the worst may be over and that we may escape major flooding and mass evacuations. Here are some pictures from the last few days I wanted to share!
Here are some shots of the group I helped and the houses we sandbagged.
The following shots were me just shooting as I drove. I tried to show a few different methods of sandbagging and diking that various homes were using. I also tried to capture the chaotic feeling and sense of urgency there was this whole time. Don’t worry, I was in the area en route to and from sandbagging, I didn’t just drive in here to shoot pictures. 
There were many places to volunteer, such as the Fargodome. Some people were used filling bags all over the city, and others were bussed to the danger zones to help actually place the bags. Schools and NDSU were closed and all students were encouraged to help sandbag. Businesses were encouraged to close, both to keep traffic off of main roads, and so workers could help volunteer. Here you can see a bus bringing volunteers.
A digital billboard in Fargo changed from showing advertisements to being flood information and telling people where they could volunteer. And yes, during the most necessary and stressful part of the flood fight, after we had found out the river could crest even higher than expected, we received a massive and awful snowstorm which dumped 8 inches of snow on us. The roads became horrible as all of the big equipment that would have been used to plow were needed at the dikes. On the other hand, the cold temperatures are what slowed the melt and runoff into the river, and helped the river crest lower, so I guess it wasn’t the worst possible thing ever.
This was one of the neighborhoods most in danger. Huge trucks and tractors were dumping dirt everywhere to make the dikes higher, and you can see urgent sandbagging happening too. By the way, the river is normally on the OTHER side of those trees.
These final shots were taken as we crossed over the Red River the last few days. The river is so high that it was absolutely unreal. I can’t even describe the magnitude of it via pictures, because the river was so wide and covering so much land that you would need to be shooting from the air to capture it!
I only had my point and shoot with me when I took this picture, so I wasn’t able to leave the shutter open as long as I wanted to...hopefully you can see that at this point on Thursday night, the river was already higher than downtown, and the dikes were the only thing protecting downtown from being under a few feet of water!
These final shots were taken Sunday while the river is cresting. This is the first exit in Minnesota on I-94. It has been totally closed down and the dike built right over the road. Sadly, I tried to take a few pictures when it was being built, but for some reason my point and shoot camera made a mistake and didn’t save them! Doh! It was an amazing site. There were literally scores of trucks dumping dirt, tractors, etc. I had never seen so many flashing lights in my life. I really wanted to go back and reshoot, but traffic was so bad I wasn’t willing to do it again. Here it is today, though.
Overall, this has been a very stressful experience. But at the same time, it has been impressive. The Fargo-Moorhead community really pulled together. There were thousands of volunteers willing to help in whatever neighborhood needed help, and the National Guard has been amazing at patrolling the dikes and fixing any problems found with them. Now that it appears there is a good chance we may not lose massive parts of the city, we can hopefully begin to destress. There is still a lot of work to do, as all this will need to be cleaned up after, and some people that have lost their homes will need to be helped, but overall the battle seems to be being won.
