N. Dakota school swamped by flood
Backup dike contains spill from river
A dike holding back the swollen Red River failed early yesterday and swamped a school, but a backup dike contained the spill and cold weather favoured flood fighting efforts.
No one was injured in the spill, US Army Corps of Engineers spokesman Frank Worley said yesterday.
Engineers noticed shifting in the permanent earth dike near the private Oak Grove Lutheran School in Fargo on Saturday and had tried to shore it up with more sandbags. Another dike location had been shored up, he said.
The Corps is overseeing efforts by hundreds of National Guard troops, local residents and volunteers to reinforce and raise sandbagged barriers, dikes and other floodwalls around this metropolitan area of 175,000 people.
"We're really in a place where we're maintaining right now," Sergeant Ross Renner of Fargo Police Department said.
The river's level continued to edge lower and was 12.25 metres at 8.15 a.m. CDT/1315 GMT yesterday, down from a record 12.44 metres on Saturday.
Cold weather has frozen flood waters in area fields, keeping spring melt from further swelling the river.
The Red River Valley is an important farming region for spring wheat and sugar beets, although spring planting is still weeks away. Wet soil could delay some seeding, which for wheat and corn can go well into May. US wheat prices fell on Friday as snowstorms in the Plains added needed soil moisture.
The temperature in Fargo was minus 6 Celsius as of 9.53 a.m. CDT (1453 GMT), with overcast skies.
The weather service said the river could still rise. Its current level is higher than the previous record of 40.10 feet set in 1897.
The NWS is forecasting a storm to hit southeastern North Dakota and west central Minnesota, including the Fargo area, on Monday and Tuesday, possibly dumping more than 15.24 centimetres of snow. Expected higher winds could also test floodwalls.