Fargo Mayor: More Levees will be Breached
By JAMES MacPHERSON and CARSON WALKER, Associated Press Writers – 1 hr 1 min ago
FARGO, N.D. – The bloated Red River briefly breached a dike early Sunday, pouring water into a school campus and the mayor called it a "wakeup call" for a city that needs to be vigilant for weaknesses in levees that could give way at any time.
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To prevent additional dike breaches, officials planned to begin dropping one-ton sandbags from helicopters Sunday to deflect the violent current of the Red River and keep it from eroding vulnerable sections of the levees.
The aerial effort also includes Air Force Predator drones used to watching water patterns and ice floes from the air and help teams respond on the ground. It's the first time the drones have been used in a flood-fighting effort.
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"I don't think there's an inch of riverfront on the Fargo side that doesn't have some kind of levee," said city engineer Mark Bittner. "We encourage neighborhoods to get together and have their own dike patrols and assist us."
Bruce Boelter walked a roughly mile-long stretch of sandbag dike to eyeball the manmade wall separating his subdivision and the Red River. Neighbor Tony Guck joined him halfway. Both had helped build the dike.
"If we don't protect this, it's gonna get us. It's basically for our own security," said Guck, 42.
The flooding was brought on by heavier-than-average winter snow, spring rain and a rapid thaw of the snowpack.
A winter storm was predicted to hit North Dakota Monday or Tuesday, although the snow isn't expected to affect the flooding in Fargo. Still, wind from the storm could cause 2-foot waves that might wash over the top of dikes, said Dave Kellenbenz, a weather service meteorologist.
The main focus now is whether the levees will be able to hold up against the weight of the river water, regardless of its level. Engineers say that anytime water is pressed up against a levee for a considerable period of time, there is a risk of catastrophic flooding.
"The saturation usually becomes the enemy of a levee over time," Jud Kneuvean, chief of emergency management for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Kansas City. "It can cause the embankment to be less stable and slide."
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Complete article: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/midwest_flooding