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Wow, I did not know things were this bad. :(
Published: March 25, 2009 07:46 am
ND officials consider blowing up Mo River ice jam
BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — National Guard members are planning to fly over the Missouri River to assess flooding conditions and the possibility of using dynamite to break up an ice jam and ease flooding around Bismarck.
Lt. Dan Murphy, a Guard spokesman, said pilots were discussing weather conditions Wednesday morning, to see when they could plan a flight.
Record amounts of water have been feeding into the Missouri River from swollen tributaries on top of a blizzard. Residents in low-lying subdivisions along the river in Bismarck and Mandan were ordered to leave their homes Tuesday after access roads flooded. Officials put out an urgent call for Wednesday morning for volunteers to help with sandbagging.
President Barack Obama declared North Dakota a federal disaster area, which means the federal government will pay 75 percent of state and local government costs for the flood fight. North Dakota Gov. John Hoeven said the state is grateful for the help.
"We think putting explosives on the ice jam is the best option," Hoeven said at a news conference Tuesday. "We've identified a demolition team and we are arranging to fly them in to help with the placement of explosives."
Officials also were considering using salt to open up a river channel. Bismarck Mayor John Warford said the city has 1,800 pounds of salt available.
Officials did not immediately have an estimate on the number of people forced to evacuate along the river. Among them were 146 inmates from the Missouri River Correctional Center, a minimum-security prison along the Missouri River.
Deputy warden Patrick Branson said the prisoners were taken to the main state penitentiary. He said the river was close enough to the correctional center buildings that officials "felt we had to get all those guys out of there."
Evan and Tove Mandigo left their Fox Island home in the middle of the night, after being notified of the rising water.
"We went to the window and looked out and the river was in our back yard," Tove Mandigo said Tuesday morning, a few hours after she and her husband and their two English setters left their home for the safety of dry ground.
"We didn't have enough time to make any real decisions on what we were going to take. We took medicines, clothes, shoes, and we left," she said.
Another couple, Jane and Michael Pole, decided not to wait.
"We just grabbed a bag, threw some stuff in and left," Jane Pole said.
The Army Corps of Engineers cut water releases for the first time ever from the Garrison Dam north of Bismarck to ease flooding.
No water will be released from the upstream dam until the flooding eases in Bismarck, spokesman Paul Johnston said. A reduction in the water releases takes about two days to reach the city, he said.
The move will cut power generation at the dam and force the Western Area Power Administration to buy electricity on the open market to meet obligations to its customers, Johnston said.
The National Weather Service said two ice jams were reported — one just south of Fox Island and one north of Bismarck. Officials said the threat intensified with the blizzard conditions.
The Bismarck area got 8 inches of snow since Monday night, with winds gusting to more than 45 mph Tuesday, the National Weather Service said. Light snow continued Wednesday morning.
Colder temperatures could slow the runoff, National Weather Service meteorologist Bill Abeling said in Bismarck.
"A lot of the ice has come from the tributaries. We've had record flooding along the Cannonball and the Knife Rivers, and that is contributing to a lot of flow into the Missouri. So even though you lower releases out of the dam, all the tributaries coming in are contributing to the water," Abeling said. "Of course, there's ice already in the Missouri River channel on the edges. The middle was open, but there was a lot of ice on the sides.
"You get that area south of Bismarck, there's a lot of curves in the river channel that cause that ice to plug up a little bit," Abeling said.
"There's no way to forecast an ice jam, because it could break up," he said. "You don't know where it's going to form, when it's going to form, how long it's going to last."
Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., who also was briefed on the situation, said the weather was the wild card.
"It's a blizzard so on top of all of that, you can't get up to assess the situation with an ice expert," he said. "You can't get up the air and look at these blockages."
Published: March 25, 2009 07:46 am
ND officials consider blowing up Mo River ice jam
BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — National Guard members are planning to fly over the Missouri River to assess flooding conditions and the possibility of using dynamite to break up an ice jam and ease flooding around Bismarck.
Lt. Dan Murphy, a Guard spokesman, said pilots were discussing weather conditions Wednesday morning, to see when they could plan a flight.
Record amounts of water have been feeding into the Missouri River from swollen tributaries on top of a blizzard. Residents in low-lying subdivisions along the river in Bismarck and Mandan were ordered to leave their homes Tuesday after access roads flooded. Officials put out an urgent call for Wednesday morning for volunteers to help with sandbagging.
President Barack Obama declared North Dakota a federal disaster area, which means the federal government will pay 75 percent of state and local government costs for the flood fight. North Dakota Gov. John Hoeven said the state is grateful for the help.
"We think putting explosives on the ice jam is the best option," Hoeven said at a news conference Tuesday. "We've identified a demolition team and we are arranging to fly them in to help with the placement of explosives."
Officials also were considering using salt to open up a river channel. Bismarck Mayor John Warford said the city has 1,800 pounds of salt available.
Officials did not immediately have an estimate on the number of people forced to evacuate along the river. Among them were 146 inmates from the Missouri River Correctional Center, a minimum-security prison along the Missouri River.
Deputy warden Patrick Branson said the prisoners were taken to the main state penitentiary. He said the river was close enough to the correctional center buildings that officials "felt we had to get all those guys out of there."
Evan and Tove Mandigo left their Fox Island home in the middle of the night, after being notified of the rising water.
"We went to the window and looked out and the river was in our back yard," Tove Mandigo said Tuesday morning, a few hours after she and her husband and their two English setters left their home for the safety of dry ground.
"We didn't have enough time to make any real decisions on what we were going to take. We took medicines, clothes, shoes, and we left," she said.
Another couple, Jane and Michael Pole, decided not to wait.
"We just grabbed a bag, threw some stuff in and left," Jane Pole said.
The Army Corps of Engineers cut water releases for the first time ever from the Garrison Dam north of Bismarck to ease flooding.
No water will be released from the upstream dam until the flooding eases in Bismarck, spokesman Paul Johnston said. A reduction in the water releases takes about two days to reach the city, he said.
The move will cut power generation at the dam and force the Western Area Power Administration to buy electricity on the open market to meet obligations to its customers, Johnston said.
The National Weather Service said two ice jams were reported — one just south of Fox Island and one north of Bismarck. Officials said the threat intensified with the blizzard conditions.
The Bismarck area got 8 inches of snow since Monday night, with winds gusting to more than 45 mph Tuesday, the National Weather Service said. Light snow continued Wednesday morning.
Colder temperatures could slow the runoff, National Weather Service meteorologist Bill Abeling said in Bismarck.
"A lot of the ice has come from the tributaries. We've had record flooding along the Cannonball and the Knife Rivers, and that is contributing to a lot of flow into the Missouri. So even though you lower releases out of the dam, all the tributaries coming in are contributing to the water," Abeling said. "Of course, there's ice already in the Missouri River channel on the edges. The middle was open, but there was a lot of ice on the sides.
"You get that area south of Bismarck, there's a lot of curves in the river channel that cause that ice to plug up a little bit," Abeling said.
"There's no way to forecast an ice jam, because it could break up," he said. "You don't know where it's going to form, when it's going to form, how long it's going to last."
Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., who also was briefed on the situation, said the weather was the wild card.
"It's a blizzard so on top of all of that, you can't get up to assess the situation with an ice expert," he said. "You can't get up the air and look at these blockages."
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