News Cut: March 27, 2009 Archive

Saving Riverview Circle -- A view from the air

Posted at 5:13 AM on March 27, 2009 by Bob Collins (3 Comments)
Filed under: Disasters, Floods

I'm sorry I haven't had a chance to post this before. But this Googlemaps view gives you a better idea of what Riverview Circle has been battling. Click for a larger view. The pushpin is 3521 Riverview, the home of the Morses. John Brummer's house is just above that, and Bruce and Vikki Anderson's is in the cul de sac across the street. You can even see the swimming pool in the Morse's backyard, that has been well documented on the News Cut site below.

The water is right up to the backyards now and you can see why there's been an evacuation. As soon as there's a breach, the Red River is going to try to run straight, rather than around the neighborhood, and it's going to cut almost directly through the Morses' property, over to the Johnson's and then back to its normal route toward downtown Fargo.

And here's the houses in better times -- Morses on the left, John Brummer's on the right.

I'm not sure when I'll be posting again. I have a cellphone modem and I'll be living out of the car for a few hours while I try to figure out where to go. Apologies in advance if things aren't quite as detailed as they've been the last few days. I'll be on with Cathy Wurzer on Morning Edition this morning.

Here's a link to all of the News Cut flood posts so far.

(3 Comments)

Requiem for Riverview Circle

Posted at 7:07 AM on March 27, 2009 by Bob Collins (5 Comments)
Filed under: Disasters, Floods

I made it onto Riverview Circle a little bit before sunrise. The police roadblocks were gone. The sandbag stations were abandoned. There were no giant piles of sand, signifying that everything the city brought, the residents used. And still, it wasn't enough.

The National Guard humvees have been replaced by troop trucks, indicative that there are still more people that need to get out.

At the Morse's house, son "Hoss" was trying to warm up. Hie was in bare feet with his pants rolled up, his waders were wet from trying to help a neighbor whose basement was being overtaken by the Red River, which had found its way in through a drain. The sump pumps burned out trying to save it.

Everyone out at the Morse house was gone. I told him I was sorry for what his family was going through, he smiled -- as everyone has this week -- and said "what are you going to do."

This neighborhood, and this city, which is getting far too little recognition as the media makes its mad dash to Fargo, did in five days, what it took three weeks to do in 1997, and they've done it better, and they've made the dikes higher.

I think a lot of people though that if it all went south, it would do so with water flowing over the top of a dike, and people still trying to stop it. But it didn't end that way.

The street outside John Brummer's house has about a half foot of water on it, again from the drains. Hoss says John evacuated last night, but I have not been able to confirm that.

Over at Bruce and Vikki Peterson's house, a light burned in a front room, and I think I saw Vikki at a computer, but I couldn't tell for sure, I stepped in water outside their house and water poured into the last pair of dry boots I had. Compared to Riverview Circle, I've got it good.

Update 7:38 a.m. - Now that the sun is (almost) up, I stopped by John Brummer's house.

Water is streaming down the driveway. Nobody is home. Only the sound of birds punctuates the neighborhood. A pallet of sandbags still sits in the driveway. They never made it to the wall.

(5 Comments)

Saving Riverview Circle: Video after the evacuation

Posted at 8:03 AM on March 27, 2009 by Bob Collins (3 Comments)
Filed under: Disasters, Floods

Most people appear to have left. I stopped back in at John Brummer's house and, indeed, they're all gone. Water streaming down the driveway and into the street. By way of comments, I've learned that Vikki and Bruce Johnson are still there, so I'll try to stop by.

Note the quiet.

(See all News Cut flood dispatches)

(3 Comments)

Saving Riverview Circle: Waiting

Posted at 10:24 AM on March 27, 2009 by Bob Collins (4 Comments)
Filed under: Disasters, Floods

I'm probably going to be doing quick posts today, so forgive me if they don't all make sense.

I stopped by Vikki and Bruce Johnson's this morning. They're still here but are prepared to leave if need be. "The neighborhood is quiet," Vikki said. I've got an interview with her and I'll try to post it soon. Bruce will be on Midday this morning with Gary Eichten. They've been getting calls from the media today, who apparently picked up their story via News Cut. So I apologized for that.

I'm currently in the kitchen of Todd and Donna Morse. The fire department is out back looking at the dike. Their son and his wife, where they stayed last night, have shown up to help sort things and it's been difficult for them.

Donna has given me 142 pictures she's been taking so that I can resize them and get them posted for her -- and you -- so their relatives from other places can follow them.

John Brummer is back working this morning although I haven't been over yet, other than to check out a steady stream that's coming down the driveway.

The National Guard is in the area. I'm told that Hoss asked them for a pump and some help with a weak spot. "That's not our mission," came the reply. And, of course, it's not. They're here to get people out.

(4 Comments)

Saving Riverview Circle: The trickle

Posted at 1:35 PM on March 27, 2009 by Bob Collins (4 Comments)
Filed under: Disasters, Floods

The three families who stayed behind to fight the Red River in the southern Moorhead, Minnesota neighborhood of Riverview Circle, are mostly on their own. Some firefighters with the Moorhead and Callahan Fire Departments are with them.

But up at the sandbagging station outside the Johnson's home, the "volunteers" now are all family members of Todd and Donna Morse and John Brummer next door. A family friend who works for the Morses, Adam Stewart, is loading sandbags into a truck. "Yesterday my wife was teaching college boys how to make sandbags," he said, adding, "God, I love that woman!"

The concern is a trickle-turned-river from the dike a storm drain that's growing. There's tremendous pressure on these sandbags right now and Todd and his relatives and friends are throwing sandbags into the water, entrapped by a black tarp.

The stench of mineral spirits permeates the Morse house. A pump with bad gas isn't working and the carburetor is being cleaned to try to coax it back to a useful life.

John Brummer has sandbagged around his house. His son his here and his daughter, a member of the Air National Guard, has arrived, but I overheard a Moorhead firefighter say, "that's an awful lot of water to be coming from a dike." (As it turned out, it's not coming from the dike.) Abut a half hour later, I also overheard him report to another fire official, "we think we're getting ahead of it out at the street where a city pump has been hurling water back at the Red for the last four hours. He added, however, "if we don't get this fixed....we could be in trouble."

After Mark Seeley's appearance on Midday, I called him and asked him to talk to John and from I understand, there was some encouragement that at least as far as water levels beyond the dike, it's not getting noticeably worse. Beyond that, much of the information you're hearing on MPR and reading on the Web site, isn't getting through here; there's no time to listen to the radio.

In that way, perhaps, Riverview Circle is cut off in more ways than one. Occasionally, I duck inside to file a blog update or video, and feel guilty that I'm not back outside helping. I check the comments and find messages from around the country for these three families -- and the Red River Valley at large -- and their eyes brighten when I relay them.

If clinging to hope and three families' refusing to quit is all it took to beat back a flood, the Red River would be a punch-drunk loser.

But it takes more. The unanswered question, however, is how much more?

(To see all of the flood posts, go here)

(4 Comments)

Riverview Circle fights City Hall

Posted at 2:50 PM on March 27, 2009 by Bob Collins (10 Comments)
Filed under: Disasters, Floods

That river of water that's pouring out of John Brummer's driveway, and threatening Riverview Circle in Moorhead is not coming from the sandbag dikes that he and the neighbors have been building since last Saturday.

It's coming from a storm drain the city put in after the flood of '97, and he's waiting for the city to come and cap it. He's been waiting a long time.

Meanwhile, up the Circle a few houses, the city is building a dike in front of houses quickly. They're being sacrificed for the good of the city that has scurried to what passes for higher ground in these parts.

Here in the Morse household, people munched on pizza while watching the news conference out of Fargo. Gov. Pawlenty, Sen. Klobuchar, and Rep. Peterson are on the TV now, but there's nobody here watching. They're back outside and have rejoined the battle.

(Go here to see all the posts from Riverview Circle.)

(10 Comments)

Saving Riverview Circle: Taking punches. Throwing punches

Posted at 10:45 PM on March 27, 2009 by Bob Collins (1 Comments)
Filed under: Disasters, Floods

Flood fatigue. It's been only one week since Moorhead residents like Vikki and Bruce Johnson of Riverview Circle first learned they had to start preparing for the worst. That's two fewer weeks than they had in 1997. You may recall earlier in the week, Bruce said that when they were out sandbagging last Saturday, the river was so far away they wondered why they were out there.

Photographer Jeff Thompson took this picture Friday morning and I think it captures everybody and everything pretty well.

I was relieved to hear from Vikki (in comments in the thread upstream) this evening:

Hey Bob, Bruce and I are fine. Bruce stayed behind when we evacuated earlier today. I went back home around 8 tonight. Our dike is strong and our pumps are working. Brian Cole, Moorhead Orchestra teacher is manning our pumps so Bruce can sleep! Another one of those theatre guys to the rescue! The battle is not over - the river has not won! We will continue to fight on!

Vikki and I talked earlier today. I encourage you to listen. Listen

A few minutes later, Donna and Todd Morse were planning their strategy for the day.

When the big equipment isn't moving, the volunteers aren't around, and when the sun goes down, I imagine it can get pretty lonely. So reader Jeff Olsen's picture tonight provides a good reminder that plenty of people are still sending help.

Shortly after the evacuation, I was on All Things Considered. (Listen)

Driving over to Rothsay (the only motel I could find a room available), I saw three empty buses from the Twin Cities, a lot flatbed trucks, and some construction equipment heading toward Fargo-Moorhead.

The sun was out Friday although it was cold. There were many more helicopters and airplanes in the sky today, one of them was a Civil Air Patrol damage assessment flight (turn down your speakers) :

The latest projection for a crest looks like this (See updates here)

The crest stays through April Fool's Day.

It looks like I'll be back up on Riverview Circle later on Saturday morning. It may be the last day I'll be in the area. I've got to restock and then return. These people can take a punch. And they can throw one.

Until I get back up there, I hope family members will continue to post updates below. Vikki, Bruce, Todd, Donna, John and Jeanie and their families have a lot of friends they've never met.

(Read all of the dispatches from Riverview Circle here)

(1 Comments)