ND Floods

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fishhuntcutwood

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Friday night I get a call asking me if I can get to ND for the floods. Gotta put the dog in the kennel and kiss the girlfriend goodbye, but yeah, I'm there.

And now I'm here. I'm in Grand Forks, which is directly north of Fargo on the ND/MN border. Things are well and it looks like (for now....) catastrophe has been averted. The river has crested at Fargo and the levees and dikes held. The crest runs down river, which on the Red River is actually north....towards Grand Forks, where I'm at.

We've got cold weather here, which is helping keep alot of the moisture frozen and allowing the river to flow and drain. We're getting hammered with a snow storm Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday, but it's supposed to stay cold until the weekend, so if the river can flow, the snow will sit until the weekend and when it starts to thaw a bit, hopefully the river will be down enough to absorb it.

They sent us out here because it's already a mess, but if the dikes fail/had failed it would've been Katrina-scale disaster. ND is flat, that's no secret, and if the river is allowed to flood, it can flood 100 miles outside the banks! So far, that's been averted. Keep your fingers crossed.

Basically, we've got five helos out here, and I'm running the maintenance for them. I don't get to fly and do the "cool" stuff much anymore, but I like doing what I do, which is managing the maintenance, inspections and ready status of five helos, only one of which came from my unit. So I'm handed four other helos from other units and they're all mine now! May not sound exciting, but I like the maintenance management side of my job. It's constant problem solving and I like being involved in the "big picture" of things.

Initially we wanted to load our 30' trailer onto a C130 and fly it up here. The trailer is equipped with tools, oil, parts, etc and is meant to be a portable maintenance base. Well come to find out, the trailer is too low to get up the ramp onto the C130. So I offload what I can, and put it onto our 1 ton stake bed truck and load the whole truck onto the 130. Looked like Beverly Hillbillies, but we got it on there. Here's the pics of the loading process, and my "view" on the flight up here...pretty much tucked in hehind the brake light and rear wheels! :O

Probably won't have much in the way of cool flood pics, as I'm not really here to fly, but figured I'd let y'all know where I'm at and what I'm doing.
 

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ha! Nice view for that ride! Work safe Fishgutswood, try to get some time in the air out there! :)
 
Awesome Jeff! Glad to know we are putting our resources where they may be needed. Fingers crossed. Work safe!
 
Hope the river just keeps on running where it should. I can't imagine living with that threat all the time....especially trying to raise livestock.

Work safe, Jeff, and stay dry and WARM!!
 
Use be careful ud der Deff!! En watch out for dem winds about to come in der fur sure!! Dem folks up der Nort, dey talk a little funney Eh?

The weather channel is more worried about the winds, and the amount of time they will be blowing in that area. Could be a wild time! Thanks for doing it and stay safe!
 
Welcome to ND. I am about 200 miles NW of you. We are not worried too much about flooding up here at the moment.
Besides the land having no slope to move water, the north end, (downstream end) of the Red thaws later than the south. That is what usually goofs up drainage in the area below Winnipeg. The majority of the water comes in from the west on the Assiniboine and meets the Red at the Forks in Winnipeg and from there to Lake Winnipeg. Makes for interesting spring thaws.
 
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  • #16
Well there's just not much going on here, but that's a good thing; it means people are safe!

We're stepping down our efforts, and sending a couple of helos home. I'm staying with three helos for a bit more. I'm running maintenance and I'm having a good time out here. A good time in that I'm doing my job, and, I think, doing it well.

Tomorrow I'm heading down to Fargo and setting up operations down there. I'm a big confused on this, because as Underwor states, the Red River flow and floods north....so the crest is coming my way, and they're sending me south to Fargo where it's receding. I think Grand Forks is doing OK though. I had my waitress tonight at dinner ask me what I was doing in town, and I told her I was here for the flood. She said, "really?" as in, "why? Do we need help?" And that's kinda been the attitude here- these people are good people and they take care of themselves and don't expect the gov't to step in and provide. It's awesome to see. For example, Fargo has 90,000 people. Last week, 80,000 showed up to fill sandbags. That's amazing. These folks here are doing just fine. I think we're here just in case something crazy happens and a freak dike breaks or something.

But that's about all I have to report tonight!
 
Jah, hey der Deff, ya figerd out what dey er sayin up der yet? Ja know, I tink dey gots a bit of an accent gooin on der!
I've werked wit a few a dem Norters en dey say I talks funny EH!!!
 
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  • #19
I used to live in MN, so their accents don't bother me much. And where I'm at it's not too bad. I get that more from the "North Woods" of MN. ND is prairie, and I put closer to "west" than "north."

So far so good on communicating with the locals.
 
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  • #21
Meh, actually got home last night! Thursday night they tell me we're standing down and to head home....but that a C130 won't be available until probably Tuesday to come and get me. I said forget that, I'll drive the sucker home! I loaded everything up on the 1 ton and drove it home. Left Friday AM and got home last night. Long drive.

Not much happened out there, but that's a good thing. It means people weren't in trouble. But like I said before, it's a whole 'nother breed of people out there. They took care of themselves and were ready for it. Out there for a week, we had one case and a bunch of patrols. Not too much going on, but that's nice for a change. Back in town now!
 
Obviously this isnt the coast guard but I thought it might give someone a laugh after Stumper's comment. :D
overloaded-unimog.jpg
 
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