Photo By Shannon Bauer | Corps quality assurance representative Jimmy Rand monitors temporory emergency levee...... read more read more
ST. PAUL, Minn. – The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, St. Paul District, is, once again, preparing for potential record flooding along the Red River of the North.
For the third consecutive year, the National Weather Service is forecasting major flooding along this river, which serves as the border between Minnesota and North Dakota.
The Red River Valley covers 45,000 square miles and occupies substantial portions of North Dakota, western Minnesota and a small portion of northeastern South Dakota. The area is prone to flooding mainly because of geography – the land is exceptionally flat. Additionally, the water flows north. As temperatures in southern portions of the basin warm in the spring, and the snow begins to melt, more and more water accumulates.
When the snow melts in the north, even more water is added as the river flow journeys north.
The Corps of Engineers has a long history of supporting flood fighting efforts in the Red River Valley. Since 1997, the St. Paul District has been requested to assist with flood fighting there seven times. The Corps can provide assistance to communities to help save lives, prevent suffering or mitigate damage to public property.
During a flood fight, this usually includes providing technical engineering assistance, building temporary emergency levees and providing local governments with sandbags and polyurethane. “We know the Corps of Engineers can quickly get materials and labor on the ground,” said Mark Voxland, mayor of Moorhead, Minn. “They bring peace of mind.”
The St. Paul District set up an emergency field office in Moorhead, Minn., late March and is deploying emergency responders to the Red River basin as the situation develops. To date, the district is working with more than 20 Minnesota and North Dakota communities, to include the cities of Fargo, N.D., and Moorhead, Minn. Corps contractors are building temporary emergency levees in a number of communities to include North Dakota’s Fargo, Lisbon, Oxbow, and Valley City and Minnesota’s Moorhead and Oakport.
The district also operates four reservoirs in the Red River basin that are used to avert flooding. The district’s water control staff drew down these lakes last winter to make more storage available during the spring melt.
Since the flood fight began, the staff has been aggressively managing operations at these facilities.
“The cities of Moorhead and Fargo and the surrounding townships, [like] Oxbow, have done extraordinary measures already, because they fight floods every year, and they’ve done [a number of] permanent measures,” said Col. Michael Price, St. Paul District commander. “We’re bringing in that last minute stopgap to help them prepare and prevent catastrophic losses.”
The Red is expected to crest in Fargo mid April.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, St. Paul District, serves the American public in the areas of environmental enhancement, navigation, flood damage reduction, water and wetlands regulation, recreation sites and disaster response. It contributes around $175 million to the five-state district economy. The 700 employees work at more than 40 sites in five upper-Midwest states.
For more information, see www.mvp.usace.army.mil.
| Date Taken: | 04.07.2011 |
| Date Posted: | 04.08.2011 12:42 |
| Story ID: | 68453 |
| Location: | FARGO, NORTH DAKOTA, US |
| Web Views: | 288 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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