ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, April 20, 1997 TAG: 9704210080
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: GRAND FORKS, N. D.
SOURCE: BOB MOEN ASSOCIATED PRESS
Officials said 60 percent of the 10 1/2-square-mile city was covered with water, and the rest was expected to go under.
Authorities went door-to-door Saturday, ordering residents still in their homes to leave after the Red River overran miles of sandbag dikes and sent dirty water washing through their neighborhoods.
Fire broke out in two downtown buildings but the floodwaters were so deep that firefighters could not get to them. By late Saturday, the fire had spread to other buildings.
Crews tried to fight the fires by dropping chemicals from planes but suspended the operation at nightfall. No injuries were reported.
``Our entire town is flooded, and now our town is burning,'' Battalion Chief Jerry Anderson said.
Most of Grand Forks' 50,000 residents abandoned the city earlier Saturday as the water moved in. But police and National Guardsmen tried to get the holdouts to leave, threatening arrest for those who refused. In neighboring East Grand Forks, Minn., officials were also trying to get people to leave.
Mayor Pat Owens said people should prepare to leave Grand Forks for as long as two weeks, saying it would take that long to fix the city's flooded water plant.
``Lack of services is going to make life difficult and perhaps dangerous for residents throughout the city, even those who are not inundated by water,'' Owens said.
Officials said 60 percent of Grand Forks, a city of 10 1/2 square miles, was covered with water. Police Lt. Byron Sieber said he expected most of the city to be flooded.
The flooding also knocked out power to the Grand Forks police department, including its radio communications. Officer Joann Chaput said the city's 65 police officers had to rely on cellular phones while it was being fixed.
Joann Hurley left her home on a National Guard truck at 4 a.m. Saturday.
``This is frightening,'' she said. ``None of us believed this could happen.''
She regretted ``just walking out and leaving all your treasures,'' adding: ``I'm 72 years old. You have many treasures.''
An Air Force base 10 miles west of town prepared to accept as many as 5,000 refugees. Other shelters were readied at three eastern North Dakota colleges, the closest of which was 35 miles south. Long lines of fleeing traffic headed west out of the city.
Karen Watt had time only to pack two small suitcases with a change of clothes and food for her dog, Otis, before she was evacuated shortly after 8 a.m. Saturday.
``Our lives are more important than furniture,'' she said as she sat at Red River High School, waiting to be sent on to another shelter.
On the opposite side of the river, residents of part of East Grand Forks, Minn., also were evacuated Saturday after an 8-foot dike burst.
The Red River stood at about 53 feet at midday Saturday. The National Weather Service said the river would rise another foot, slowly over the next few days. Flood stage is 28 feet.
In the tabletop-flat Red River Valley, police said the water that swirled hip-deep around downtown buildings Saturday could linger for more than five days.
In Fargo, 75 miles to the south, workers finished an earthen dike across the city's southern half that cut off more than 300 homes.
Fargo Mayor Bruce Furness said the move was a kind of housing triage, meant to protect the rest of the city from the advancing water.
More than 300 North Dakota National Guardsmen were on call to help with the flood emergency, along with thousands of airmen at the Grand Forks Air Force Base.
When it's all over, Pulst said, ``I'm building a house on top of a hill in a desert.''
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