Minot mayor: Water to top dikes within hour
Not sure if you’d seen this but spent the last couple days helping friends get all their stuff out to high ground (since my home is out of the area). Mother Nature is a beast. They already say the 10 ft wall of water coming downstream from Canada will bust the dykes and flood about 1/4 of the town. That’s pretty bad considering we are only a town of 40,000. Send some prayers our way!
— TV2112, Minot, North Dakota
Yes, do, even if TV2112 wasn’t one of our own.
So sad for those people. Definitely will add prayers for all those in the possible and definite flooding areas! God Bless them all!
I was there in '73-'76 at Minot AFB. We had dikes of 10-14' high, and I remember VIVIDLY walking along the top of the dikes at night time, scanning for the possibility of imminent failure. Had a CB walkie-talkie in my hand, ready to report anything suspicious. I could feel the dike tremble from the volume of wateer going through. We were very concerned about erosion. Threw a LOT of sandbags during that time.
The problem is that they no longer have the AF "volunteers" to call upon, the base is mostly shut down. Not too many personnel available for sandbag duty any more. I can sure sympathize with 'em!
Best of luck, Minot! Gonna need it. Over half of the town is imperiled, the other half is higher. "On the bluff", as we used to say.
I was a child of four, when my family moved to Minot AFB in 1968. It was my dad's first base, after four tours in Viet Nam. We were there from '68 until '70, and I have very fond memories of the area.
My prayers to all!
TV2112, let us know how you are!
Godspeed!
Update: Started seeping over a couple parts and they shut down a couple bridges. We had some library patrons, county workers, and passersbys help move the entire Ward County Public Library into 3 trailers today in 6.5 hours. That's why I love this area. The community really comes together to try and help. They are pretty much now trying to save the water plant, sewage centers, and power plants. The secondary levees they are putting up around these structures are massive. We had a scare too when they annouced one of the gauges read 43,000 cfs (cubic feet per seond) above us. This was dreadful since they only predicted 20,000 cfs. Luckily the gauge was broken and it really only had 23,000 cfs coming through.
@Igor – I am not walking them right now. They have the AFB, NG, and AG doing that. They also got the PD and Sheriffs out in full force. Fresh laid clay thats slick and yer nuts rumble from the amount of water flowing by.
They have a live feed running on http://www.kxnet.com showing water levels every hour.
Also Igor, half the base isn't shut down. In fact they added 5 more squadrons. I think they are up to 11,000 peeps on Minot AFB now (including dependents). Thanks Bob!
Oh yeah. Today we surpassed the 1969 record flood stage of 1555.41 and are sitting at 1555.51. This may not seem like much until they say it will crest at 1563 (elevation). So we got 8 more feet of water coming and from the pic Bob has posted up there you can see we don't have 8 feet of dike left there
Anyway, thanks for the prayers all.
Update: they just said we will hit 1566 now. They just announced everyone in the valley to evac immediately. West of town is flooding bad now and they are shutting down roads left and right.
I feel sorry for the Optimists…us Realists told them to get out. Now we can't get to them and they want help moving. What can you say? How do you make an optimist (liberal) leave when they are not facing immediate danger? You can't because they always say it won't happen to them. Then 1 hour before their home is swallowed by a flood they call you and ask for a trailor? I don't have the trailor I had 2 days ago because it is helping others. I don't have the 3 pickups and 6 guys to help anymore because you didn't need them. Why doesn't the common folks listen to realists and not optimists. It would save alot more property and lives.
BTW There was a fucktard lady with an infant sitting on a lawn chair above the Broadway bridge watching the flood. Shows all peoples have idiots…because a bridge NEVER collapsed because of water…Lucky the Corps of Engineers saw that and shut down the bridge to all but emergency traffic. We are about to be a divided city. All the food is in the south. North gonna be sucking. Lol…as a history buff it's kinda ironic….