Escalating Fears of Red River Floods Send Workers Scurrying
Crews scrambled to shore up earthen dikes Tuesday as forecasters warned that rain would push the flooding Red River and its tributaries higher than predicted.
As flooding problems stretched from North Dakota to the Minnesota capital, the National Weather Service said the Red could crest at least a foot higher than expected in Fargo and Grand Forks next week.
The cities, hard hit by record flooding in 1997, so far have been spared widespread damage. Grand Forks engineer Al Grasser said it could take at least five days to raise the dikes.
“With all the warm weather and rain, the frost has gone out of the dikes, and they will be tough to raise,” he said.
The river rose Tuesday to 31.5 feet in Fargo, 13 feet above flood stage; it could reach 37 feet Monday. It was 43 feet Tuesday in Grand Forks, 15 feet above flood stage; it could reach 48 feet in a week.
The flood stage in Grand Forks in 1997 was 54.3 feet.
The Red, which flows north toward Lake Winnipeg in Manitoba, Canada, and forms the state line between North Dakota and Minnesota, routinely spills its banks in springtime.
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