Crazy Flooding in ND

[NavesRegge]

Most of you probably haven't heard, but in North Dakota we are having some big flood problems with the Missouri river. For example, I was sandbagging around here a couple weeks ago:



Even then the water was really high. My uncle, who lives in a house near the river, has to stay in his house to man the pumps. He's probably stuck in there right now. He even got an article written about him in the local newspaper.

The river is now flowing at 139,000 cubic feet per second, which is an insane amount of water. It's predicted to get up to 150,000 cfs. The water is moving so fast in the river that the bottom and the sides of the river are getting so worn away that the flooding has actually lessened a bit, but we're still getting just as much water. This is a cause for concern for waterside houses with docks because, when the river goes back to normal, these houses might not have usable docks and will likely lose a lot of value along with the value lost with water damage.

Luckily, I'm up in the northern, higher part of town, so I won't be directly affected, but a couple people I know are losing their homes right now.

If you want to read up more on this or see more pictures, the local newspaper's website has a lot of articles and pictures on the subject: http://www.bismarcktribune.com/news/flood2011/

[Olls]

Don't you guys know how to build dikes?

[Zz Badnusty]

Good luck to you and your neighbors, NavesRegge.

I just heard about some of this flooding a week ago. I'm a big fan of Theodore Roosevelt National Park (particularly the North Unit) and the North Dakota Badlands.
The park has been posting pictures of some significant mudslides in the Badlands. Viewing that landscape in person, it is quite evident that floods of this nature are not uncommon at all in the grand scheme of things.

[NavesRegge]

Don't you guys know how to build dikes?

Yeah, funny story about that. You see, we kinda, sorta, positioned a major dike in a way that only half of the houses it was supposed to protect would actually be protected. At least, that's how I understood it.

[Olls]

Ouch...
See, that's what I don't understand. A lot of your houses are made of wood, instead of brick, even in areas like Oklahoma.
Over here, every house is made out of bricks, and we don't even get tornadoes. For some reason, they also built the biggest dikes, but we don't have floods or high tide (I think there was one once in 1953 or something).

[Chilly Willy]

This happens every other year... sometimes every year. At some point it'll become so expensive rebuilding that they'll do something to take care of the problem once and for all, like the TVA.