ROANOKE TIMES 
                      Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times

DATE: Monday, April 21, 1997                 TAG: 9704210155
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL   PAGE: A-1  EDITION: METRO 
DATELINE: GRAND FORKS, N.D.
SOURCE: KNIGHT-RIDDER/TRIBUNE

AND THEN CAME THE LOCUSTS - BLAZE DOUSED, BUT FIREFIGHTERS WATCHING FOR FLARE-UPS

As if the flooding weren't enough, Grand Forks had a major downtown blaze to contend with Sunday.

In a bizarre combination of fire and water, downtown Grand Forks has become a smoking, flooded ghost town.

A four-block swath of buildings was smoldering Sunday, while the streets were filled with 6 feet of rushing water from the overflowing Red River in what Gov. Ed Schafer called ``the single worst disaster in the history of North Dakota.''

With the water still rising, authorities ordered the evacuation of 75 percent of Grand Forks' 50,000 residents. Thousands of them streamed out of town in campers, pickups and cars to stay with friends and relatives or to bunk at a nearby Air Force base that has been turned into a shelter.

Firefighters used a helicopter with a bucket, able to hold 2,200 pounds of water, to scoop up floodwater. They dumped it on 11 buildings destroyed or damaged by the fire, which began Saturday and was only brought under control Sunday afternoon. The cause of the fire has not been determined.

The fire would have been disaster enough. But it was all the more horrific because deep waters from the worst floods in more than a century left firefighters initially unable to get to the buildings, forcing them to call in federal planes normally used to fight forest fires.

The planes dive-bombed the buildings with a smoky red chemical before two fire department pumpers ferried in on big-wheeled flatbed trucks and another specialized Air Force fire truck, able to operate in 8 feet of water, got close enough to fight the blaze.

The icy water, foul from overwhelmed sewage drains, left at least three firefighters suffering from hypothermia. While several people were rescued from the burning buildings, no injuries were reported.

People here awoke Sunday to find the downtown smoking and water covering more than a third of the 10-square-mile city, most of which was shut off by National Guardsmen who set up roadblocks with Humvees at key intersections.

Even with the fire extinguished, the high waters continued to consume Grand Forks. And city officials warned that those waters might not have peaked.

``There's always a potential for a larger portion of the city to be flooded,'' said Jim Campbell, the city's emergency management director. ``The river is still rising.''

The Red River stood at 53.7 feet at 7 a.m. Sunday, and the National Weather Service said it would crest today at 54 feet and stay at that level for about a week. Flood stage is 28 feet.

The small portion of the city not immediately threatened was without water and working toilets. The flood overwhelmed the city's water and sewage-treatment plants, and city officials said it would be more than three weeks before potable water could be restored.

United Hospital, the city's only hospital, was shoring up its levee with bulldozers. Officials planned to establish a special 20-bed surgery center at Grand Forks Air Force Base. At the same time, dozens of patients were airlifted from the hospital, some to medical facilities as far away as Minneapolis.

Portions of the University of North Dakota's campus, near downtown, were inundated, and school officials Sunday were scrambling to salvage critical records. The school was officially closed for the rest of the academic year, and next month's commencement was canceled.

This winter's record snow in the upper Plains has resulted in a flood of epic proportions as spring's warm weather has arrived. The water has spread farther and with greater force than scientists predicted and has been overwhelming communities all along the Red River, which forms the state line between North Dakota and Minnesota as it flows north to Canada.

Over the last several days, as the water moved north toward Grand Forks, the state's second-largest city, it confounded forecasters by rising higher and faster than anticipated.

LENGTH: Medium:   80 lines
ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO:  ASSOCIATED PRESS. Clarence Eide, 77, waits at the top of
          his fire escape for the U.S. Coast Guard to evacuate him from his 
          downtown Grand Forks apartment Sunday. He had missed evacuation 
          announcements. color.