Lutheran relief official says this year’s flooding worse than 1993
This spring’s Red River Valley flooding was as bad, if not worse, than the devastating Midwestern floods of 1993, a Lutheran World Relief official said Tuesday.

Elaine Richter, director of Lutheran Church Missouri Synod World Relief, and other Lutheran disaster relief officials were in Fargo Tuesday to discuss flood relief efforts with local Lutherans.

Lutheran Social Services of North Dakota in Fargo is the headquarters for the Disaster Response Task Force. The task force includes Lutheran Social Services of North Dakota, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the Lutheran Church’s Missouri Synod, Lutheran Brotherhood, Catholic Family Services and Lutheran Social Service of Minnesota.

The task force is focused on three areas: providing people with sump pumps, generators, space heaters, lanterns, flashlights and other flood fighting equipment; finding temporary homes for displaced flood victims and recruiting and training volunteers to help with cleanup efforts.

Richter said Lutherans realize that recovering from the flooding will take years and they will be here to help as long as they’re needed.

Keith Ingle, president of Lutheran Social Services of North Dakota, said his agency helped find temporary homes in the Fargo-Moorhead area for between 3,000 and 4,000 Grand Forks, N.D., area residents.

That isn’t as many as Lutheran Social Services officials expected. People who fled from their home apparently wanted to take shelter away from the river, Ingle said. As a result, small towns such as Langdon, N.D., which is west of Grand Forks, have nearly doubled in population temporarily, he said.

Gil Furst, associate director of ELCA Disaster Response, said what flood victims need most now is cash contributions. Cash will let them buy the things they need and support their local communities’ economy, he said.

Soon they’ll also need volunteers to come in, roll up their sleeves and muck out basements and other flooded areas, he said.

Prayer also is important, he contended.

"I think the power of prayer in a situation like this is as powerful as the waters of the flood," he said.