South Fargo residents, city officials discuss glitches in flood fight
By DeAnne Hilgers
The Forum
Roger Erickson’s pockets are $75,000 lighter since two south Fargo housing developments flooded last week.

Erickson has eight homes under construction in the Timberline and Fox Run neighborhoods. Between buying materials to prevent flooding and fixing damage to those homes, he figures he’ll spend about $75,000.

On Wednesday, he sought some help from the city, but learned it’s unlikely he’ll get much.

He built some of those lots to 42 feet, far above the record 39.5-foot crest. "As a builder, I can’t do much more than that," he said.

And beyond paying for sand and sandbags, there isn’t much the city can do, said Mayor Bruce Furness.

Erickson won’t qualify for relief from the Federal Emergency Management Agency because he’s a contractor, he said. Furness agreed help is unlikely for Erickson, but promised to try to find it.

Furness promised help to all flood victims in the Timberline and Fox Run housing developments Wednesday, but it wasn’t just assistance residents wanted.

About 100 people gathered for an impromptu meeting with city officials along 40th Avenue South, seeking an apology for communication problems after a breach in a levee last week left residents stranded in water and hard-pressed for sandbags to protect themselves.

Murmurs and occasional outright accusations that the city had abandoned the two housing developments rippled through the crowd.

While Furness acknowledged a communication problem, he and Public Works Director Pat Zavoral rejected the claim that the city abandoned the neighborhoods.

City Engineer Mark Bittner used a map to show residents the multiple dilemmas the city faced at the time, including a sudden increase in the crest prediction, a buildup of water to the south surging quickly toward Fargo and dozens of levees the city had to raise within hours. The city also faced serious flooding from three directions.

"We were on the brink of total disaster," Bittner said.

Once the Timberline levee failed, the city couldn’t provide protection from the south, he said. The city, realizing the magnitude of the problem, issued a voluntary evacuation order, Zavoral said.

The city kept pumps working in the area but the water came too fast for the pumps to maintain the fight, Zavoral said.

That’s when the contingency dike along 40th Avenue went up to protect as much of the rest of the city as possible.

City officials didn’t abandon the families, but they had to cut their losses, Zavoral said.

Residents claimed they should have been told about the coming water.

"If that’s not abandonment, what is?" one man asked.

Residents rushed home at Furness’ insistence a week ago to check their properties, saw nothing wrong and waited for further information.

"Nobody came and told us anything," one woman said.

One resident said that Wednesday was the first time the group had seen a city official in more than a week.

Others complained the city sent no help and no sandbags once they were swamped.

The city didn’t send sandbags because it had none to send, Zavoral said. Believing the river had crested, the city had disbanded its sandbag operation and volunteer program.

Once sandbags were available, they were dropped as close to the developments as possible.

The mayor said he was unwilling to send city trucks into the flooded neighborhoods because if they became stuck, they would be useless for other areas. He also would not ask volunteers to enter a flooded area, he said.

But the city did make arrangements with a private contractor and Cass County’s engineering department to assist the neighborhoods. The city also provided thousands of sandbags for the neighborhoods.

"To say we didn’t do anything isn’t a fair statement," Furness said.

The city also will assist with the cleanup and reimburse residents for any sand or sandbag costs they incurred.

The fire department was called in Wednesday afternoon to start pumping out flooded basements and likely will use hoses to clean the streets on Friday.

Jack Easton, 3215 42nd Ave. S.W., said the housing developments won the flood fight because of help from contractors – many building homes in the neighborhoods – and volunteers.

"The lack of information ... was probably one of our biggest downfalls here," he said. "What we felt was we were abandoned out here."

Even so, Easton and others commended city employees on the flood fight.

They made difficult decisions under stress and without sleep, said Shirley Montgomery, 4118 Timberline Drive.

"We acknowledge the tough decisions that were there," she said.

Furness said several options are under consideration for preventing such a problem in the future. Some levees will be made permanent, particularly the earthen dike protecting Timberline.

Bittner said he also will support a requirement to raise all lots in a flood plain to 1 foot above the 100-year flood plain elevation, currently 903 feet above sea level. One of the biggest problems in Timberline and Fox Run was vacant lots that had not yet been built up, allowing water to flow through, he said.

Bittner also supports giving the city control of the elevation of any property bordering floodable land.