North Dakota patrol levees amid record flood

A floodwall protecting a school in the US state of North Dakota cracked early Sunday, causing flooding in the campus and prompting officials to step up work to reinforce levees against a record-breaking flood.

Officials fear as many as 30,000 people could be left homeless in the northern plains if the mighty Red River breaks through levees protecting North Dakota's largest city Fargo, as well as Moorhead lying on the opposite bank in Minnesota.

One such floodwall protecting Oak Grove School in Fargo buckled overnight, causing water to enter the campus, officials said. City crews and the National Guard were dispatched to the scene and are trying to repair the damage.

No information about the damage was immediately available.

The weary region was granted some relief Saturday as water level sank by several inches to 40.38 feet 13.2 meters, but city officials warned that the river was not done with them yet.

"With water this high we absolutely are in the watch and respond and plug mode," Fargo mayor Dennis Walaker said.

The Red River is putting enormous amounts of pressure on the city's 48 miles 77 kilometers of protective dikes and levees and crews are struggling to reinforce weak spots and contain minor leaks, he told reporters.

That pressure is likely to continue for days, if not weeks, as the floods make their way slowly northward to Canada and are replenished with inflows from tributaries and overland flooding.

"We simply need to have people patrolling the streets, watching the dikes and calling us when they see something," Walaker said.

Thousands of people have already fled their homes as this flat prairie state remained blanketed with snow and flooded waterways which were closing in on isolated farms and smaller towns.

Water levels in some homes had reached the second floor while small dikes kept others dry in the middle of a deep, muddy lake.

Bitterly cold temperatures may have saved the city from a deluge by freezing some of the floodwater and preventing further melting, officials said.

But a potential blizzard forecast to dump four to eight inches 10 to 20 centimeters of snow on the Red River Valley in the coming days may cause waves up to two feet 60 centimeters due to high winds, the weather service warned.

And dangerous ice jams were forming.

Downtown Fargo was largely empty after the mayor asked non-essential businesses to close their doors and residents to stay off the roads to make room for rapid response teams.

Sandbagging efforts were set to resume Sunday morning at the Fargodome stadium where desperate volunteers have already filled more than 2.5 million bags used to build a series of dikes.

Earthen levees were also being reinforced and officials were considering using helicopters to lower enormous bags of sand into the floodwaters at key points.

Both Grand Forks, North Dakota and Winnipeg, across the border in Canada, have flood diversion systems which should protect them from the forecasted crests.



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