Bengfort.com

I’m sorry I haven’t updated you guys on the flood situation which has gotten progressively worse in North Dakota, and Lisbon in particular. I have been hugely busy and cut off from home and dog by the rising waters- so blogging hasn’t been the highest priority lately! I’m sorry to say that CNN and the major news networks have gotten pretty bored of covering the flood here- but in fact, it has been quite exciting.

Fargo, Grand Forks, and Bismarck remain safe and mostly dry- these are the major cities, and I suspect that is the reason for the lack of national news coming out of this state. However, the flood has mostly wiped out the town of Catherine (a small time near us), and caused a lot of trouble in Valley City and Lisbon… so pretty much I picked the worst place to live in North Dakota!The guard has been deployed in pretty much full force to the area. It is hard to go anywhere without seeing HUMVEEs, Black Hawks, Soldiers, or LAVs with dirt in the back of them. So pretty much, still a war zone out here.

Back at Tim and Pat’s house- they have become an island- affectionately named Arrowhead Island. The Sheyenne has taken an oxbow that now goes over the road in front of the house and then back to the river through Grandma and Grandpa’s house. As a result, they and the neighbors are completely cut off from the road- and we have to take a boat to go back and forth one side to the other. Luckily, they managed to get most of the cars parked on the other side before the road became impassible (it is now a waterfall) so to get out you simply canoe or row to the other side, and grab your car to head out. The amount of mud is incredible!

The Sheyenne once again set a record, this time at 22.4 feet- a few feet above the previous record of 19.7 set a couple of weeks ago. As a result, the sandbag dike at the back of the house is now replaced with an earthen clay dike that completely surrounds the house thanks to the water coming in from all sides. The clay dike is at about 24 feet high- and the water is up against it, and leaking underneath slowly. Tim and Pat have been spending many sleepless nights checking on the water and resetting pumps to continually pump out the leakages that are occuring- I can’t imagine this has been any fun for them (or the dogs for that matter).

The water has started to go down- but not by much, and not very fast. We are hoping by the end of next week to have it down enough that the constant pumping can cease, but it is hard to tell when the road will come back or even when the water will be removed. It’s a pretty bad situation. Meanwhile, I have been working extremely hard for the end of the semester and have been spending most of my nights sleeping in my pickup because driving back to the flood is just unmanageable. Sleeping in the truck got tough after a while, and when Mike came for the weekend, at least I had a bed and a hotel room- and one of my classmates let me stay with him a night. Now I’m staying with Beci and Ben- the end of the semester is 3 weeks away, and it looks like I might be with them to the end!

And now, some pictures …