Flooded river widens hearts,
deepens fortitudeFriends and family face nature's ultimate test
Like the freight trains that run alongside and across the Red River, the icy flood waters began to build momentum two weeks ago in my hometown, Wahpeton, N.D., and its twin, Breckenridge, Minn. Curiosity pulled me to the photo desk to look at the spillover from the river's banks and the effect it was having at the confluence of the Ottertail and the Bois de Sioux. Those two rivers meet at the bridge between the two towns and from there the water runs north, usually at a somewhat shallow, leisurely pace.
A picture of a friend sandbagging at her glass and paint store caught my eye just as a co-worker passed by.
"You know her, I suppose?" he asked.
"Actually, yes," I replied to the questioner's surprise.
My parents still live in Wahpeton. But they were typically low-key about the whole affair and my response was more of wonder than anything else.
When I was 7, snow fell by the truckload that winter and the resulting melt caused a flood the likes of which hadn't been seen in a long time.
I expected something similar, maybe a little worse, this spring.
I was wrong.
By the middle of last week, the waters of that Red River freighter were rolling along at a voluminous and powerful clip.
Fargo, N.D., and Moorhead, Minn., 50 miles to the north, stood in the way next. My wonder turned to concern for friends whose homes and businesses are on the river's banks. The people I watched on the news were sandbagging and doing all the things one grows accustomed to seeing during a flood. The images were of a sloppy, wet disaster, but that was all. Besides, the Padres were coming to Honolulu and my friends would be OK.
Monday's trip through the wire photos opened my eyes and made me want to shut them at the same time.
Seventy-five miles further north, the Red had slammed home so much reality, blowing away almost everything in its tracks.
For much of the previous two days, Grand Forks, the city where I went to college, was under water and burning at the same time. The Herald, the newspaper where I interned for two years, had been gutted.
Friends' homes, their lives, were awash in the freezing water. My cousin Tom and his family and my uncle Lloyd evacuated their houses, leaving them at the mercy of an uncaring torrent.
The destruction is awesome. But it is nothing compared to the fortitude of the people in the Red River valley. There attitudes are remarkable only to those who have never been there.
Monica and Kirby Kuklenski's backyard runs down to the Red in south Moorhead. They have been friends of mine for more than 25 years. I love Monica as though she were my own mother.
"Oh, jeez, we're just pooped all the time," Kirby said Wednesday.
They and their son, Joe, like all of their neighbors, had spent the last few days pumping water out of their homes round the clock. They have 600 sandbags surrounding the house.
"We don't have it like our neighbors," Monica said. "The ones to the right have 7,000."
Typical.
Sure, things are bad for us, but they could be a lot worse. No doubt the neighbors say similar things.
Help comes from all directions. "People just walk off the street and help you sandbag," Monica said.
Mary Jo Crissler is in medical school at the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks. The university has canceled the remainder of the semester.
"It's pretty much chaos," she said from her mother's house in Wahpeton. She'll have to make up for lost class time this summer. She needs to in order to pass her boards and, eventually, treat patients.
"For some people it could potentially set them back a semester," she said.
Always, someone else has it worse.
Her brother, Darrell, my college roommate and lifelong friend, owns a home in south Fargo. I can't get ahold of him. He no doubt has more pressing matters on his mind. He is part of a neighborhood that has decided some homes might have to be sacrificed in order to save most of them from the spreading flood.
Can you imagine that?
I watched as one of Darrell's neighbors explained on "Dateline" that even though he had just built his house -- his family's dream home -- they would be more than willing to lose it for the good of the entire neighborhood.
"Darrell's on the right side of the dike," Mary Jo tells me.
"The right side, or the correct side?" I ask.
She laughs.
"The correct side."
That is a relief.
My cousin Tom from Grand Forks hasn't seen his house in days. He and his wife had just remodeled. New furniture, the works. He figures if only the basement is flooded, that will be a blessing.
So what if his freezer and hundreds of dollars in tools are down there. And if the water comes up into the first floor, that wouldn't be the worst thing in the world.
None of that is important.
No one is dead.
"At a time like that, I guess you get strength from somewhere else," my aunt Betty tells me.
President Clinton visited the Grand Forks area this week. He expressed wonder at the remarkable determination of the people and their enduring grit.
It doesn't surprise me one bit.
I sit here, 6,000 miles away and I have just one thing left to add.
There is no question that the Red River valley will be rebuilt. The people there have said so.
Joe Edwards is sports editor of the Star-Bulletin.
He grew up in Wahpeton, N.D., and graduated from the
University of North Dakota in Grand Forks. My Turn is a
periodic column writter by Star-Bulletin staff members.
