By Zack Lee
At first it seemed like a recurring nightmare to upperclassmen at Valley City State University. When they heard that sandbagging would be in order after last spring’s flood hiatus, images of the 2009 flood were conjured up. Luckily it hasn’t been that bad… so far.
After about a week and a half of volunteer work from VCSU and the rest of the Valley City community, all the sandbags dikes were set for the river’s rise as of 1 pm on April 8th according to the Valley City Times Record.
The consensus around Valley City is that the city is ready for this flood.
“It seems like we are more prepared,” said Kyle Vareberg, a junior at VCSU who was active in volunteering to fight the flood. “Not as many people jumped at the opportunity to help out, but we managed to get all the sandbags we needed filled in a timely manner.”
The sandbags will be tested on Monday as the Bald Hill Dam northwest of Valley City will be bumping up its outflow levels. The water level of the Sheyenne River is expected to reach 17.5 to 18 feet by Monday according to newsdakota.com. Ironically, this expected level is almost the exact same level as the river was at this time in 2009 according to @VCfloodstage on twitter.com. The flood stage is 15 feet according to water.weather.gov.
The flood fight in Valley City seems to be more dependent on college and high school students volunteering than the Fargo flood does.
“I did go sandbagging once,” said Kent Johnson, a senior majoring in emergency management at NDSU. He was unable to contribute more because of a busy schedule. “It seems like Fargo always has a good turnout of volunteers when flood season comes along.” Unlike VCSU, NDSU hasn’t cancelled any classes to fight the flood as of yet this year.
“I think it’s a good idea because it got a lot of people out there,” said Sierra Lasilla, a freshman at VCSU, referring to the cancellation of classes to go sandbag. “But, there still were a lot of people who slept in, missed class, and didn’t help sandbag.”
Unfortunately not everyone had the desire to go help out on their “day off” dedicated to go sandbagging. However a large amount of people did and some even had a good time.
“It’s enjoyable,” said Cy Kirsch, a sophomore at VCSU who helped lay one of the dikes. “I can imagine it would suck in bad weather, but since it was gorgeous out, it was a blast.”
Kirsch was a part of the freshman class of 2009 who came in after the major 2009 flood. It would seem that this would make people change their mind about coming to VCSU but Kirsch is different.
“I was slightly more excited to come here because there was a chance of some excitement and not just school, school, school.”
In fact, VCSU had its largest freshman class since 1988 in fall 2010 according to vcsu.edu/news. This was only a year and one summer from the big flood. Adding to that, a larger percentage of this class were North Dakotans so they knew what they were getting into.
Time will only tell how bad this year’s flood will end up getting, but as of now, it seems like Valley City is in pretty good shape.
Angele` Curtis has lived in Valley City for 14 years and this is only the second time that she has seen it flood, but, according to her, “It is not nearly as bad as the first time.”
Sources
Advanced hydrolic prediction service (n.d.). In water.weather.gov. Retrieved April 10, 2011, from http://water.weather.gov
Shirley, S. (2010, September 7). Great enrollment news at VCSU!. In vcsu.edu. Retrieved April 10, 2011, from http://www.vcsu.edu/news/news.htm?id=7034
Staff, . (2011, April 8). All sandbag dikes are set for river's rise. In times-online.com. Retrieved April 10, 2011, from http://www.times-online.com/news
Urness, S. (2011, April 10). Bald hill dam to increase outflows. In newsdakota.com. Retrieved April 10, 2011 http://www.newsdakota.com/page/news
ValleyCityFloodStage (2009, April 10). In twitter.com. Retrieved April 10, 2011, from http://twitter.com/#!/VCfloodstage