Red River Flood, 1997

Cairn in Grand Forks commemorating the 1997 flood

The Red River in Manitoba and the U.S. states of Minnesota and North Dakota has flooded repeatedly through the centuries, endangering lives and property.

Past floods

The river is highly prone to flooding because of its northward flow. As spring approaches, the snow is melted from south to north alongside the riverflow. There is also the possibility that the surplus water can hit unmelted ice on the river and back up. The flatness of the terrain and small slope of the river is a significant factor.

The worst flood on record was in 1826, when settlers of the Selkirk Colony fled water reaching 11.1 m above the river bed.

Floods occured in both 1948 and 1950. The 1950 flood reached a high of 9.2 m at Winnipeg—causing 100,000 people to be evacuated and $606 million (in 1997 Canadian dollars) of damage, prompting the government of Manitoba to set up flood safety measures.

Significant floods also occurred in 1882, 1897, 1969, 1975, 1989, and 1996. A fairly major flood struck in 1979. Homes not damaged in that flood were incorrectly assumed to be safe from a future flood.

Origins of the 1997 flood

There were three main factors that contributed to the floods severity:

1. There was overabundant snowfall the past winter. A total of 98.6 inches of snow accumulated.
2. Spring rainstorms had saturated the ground so that it could not absorb much water.
3. A freak blizzard (Hannah) had just dumped a large amount of snow on the area.

The river often rises in the region during the spring snowmelt, but the record 1996-97 snowfall created river levels unseen in over a hundred years.

The flood in Grand Forks and East Grand Forks

The Red River forms the border between North Dakota and Minnesota. A few sets of "sister cities" sit directly on this border, with the most devastated by the floodwaters being Grand Forks, North Dakota and its counterpart East Grand Forks, Minnesota, although other pairs saw significant flooding and damage as well, including Fargo-Moorhead and Wahpeton-Breckenridge. Much of the flooding occurred not only from the rising river, but from overland flooding, as the flooded Red River was unable to drain meltwater away, necessitating dikes on both the riverfront and around the edges of towns.

There was some sense of imminent threat in Grand Forks, but the cities could not prepare for such an enormous flood. The National Weather Service had a long-standing forecast for the river to crest at 49 feet, which was the river's highest level during the 1979 flood. The cities had been able to get their dikes to this level, but the river continued to rise past it, to the astonishment of the NWS (which didn't upgrade its forecast until April 16, the day the river actually reached 49 feet). The dikes in the low-lying Lincoln Drive neighborhood of Grand Forks were the first to break, doing so early on April 18. Other dikes all over Grand Forks and East Grand Forks would fail that day and the next, flooding thousands of homes.

Water would end up reaching areas over two miles away, necessitating the evacuation of all of East Grand Forks and 75% of Grand Forks. School was cancelled in both cities for the remainder of the term, as were classes at UND. Because all transpotation was cut off between the two cities (and for many miles, the two states), East Grand Forks residents were evacuated to nearby Crookston, namely to UMC, while residents of Grand Forks went to the Grand Forks Air Force Base. The river crested at just over 54 feet on April 21, and the river level would not fall below 49 feet until April 26. Because water drained so slowly out of the most low-lying areas, some homeowners couldn't visit their damaged property until May.

The flood made national news. The most familiar footage is probably the fire that ironically blazed downtown, surrounded by floodwaters. The Grand Forks Herald building was totally destroyed in the fire, along with 120 years of archives. The national attention of both flood and fire reached Joan Kroc, the McDonald's heiress, who donated $15,000,000 to be divided into $2,000 portions for each damaged household (though the amount some homeowners recieved was less due to the huge number of devastated homes). Smaller donations from all over the country poured in to the communities. President Clinton toured the cities and visited the thousands of refugees at the Air Force base on April 22.

All told, there was $2 billion USD in damage to Grand Forks and East Grand Forks. Thousands moved away to avoid the painful memories caused by the disaster. Grand Forks, losing only 3% of its population from 1997-2000, didn't fare as badly as its sister city, which lost nearly 17% of its residents. Although many left the area, the cities were blessed by the fact that no one was killed by the flood.

Recovery and Legacy

The 5-foot discrepancy between the actual crest and that which the NWS had predicted led to widespread anger among locals, especially since the citizens of both cities reached and even slightly surpassed the NWS's level of protection through weeks of hard work. This anger was most famously expressed by a local resident's devastated home having the words "49 feet my ass" smeared on the exterior. The Service has since revised their method of forecasting spring floods.

Several local schools were destroyed, prompting the construction of replacements. Because construction was not finished on most of these schools until the end of 1998, hundreds of students spend a year and a half of school in temporary locations ranging from churches to FEMA-constructed temporary metal buildings, known by locals as "tin bins." Numerous city buildings were also damaged, especially in East Grand Forks, where the flood-ravaged downtown area had been home to the city hall and the public library. Both have since been replaced by new and elegant buildings, though not before spending a few years housed in a former elementary school and an ice rink's warming house, respectively.

New dikes have been constructed in both cities. The system of levees and new "invisible floodwalls" should be complete in 2007, having cost several hundred million USD. What were once entire neighborhoods are now covered by grass and trees, part of an extensive greenway on the wet side of the new dikes. In East Grand Forks, this transformation is especially visible. One former neighborhood is now a large campground, the spiritual center of what is now known as the Red River State Recreation Area. The cities of today are drastically different from their 1997 versions, but most residents are pleased with this, seeing it as fulfillment of President Bill Clinton's promise that the cities would "rebuild stronger and better than ever."

The flood in Manitoba

The province constructed the Red River Floodway in 1968, put up permanent dikes in eight towns south of Winnipeg, and built clay dikes and diversion dams in the Winnipeg area. Other flood control structures completed later were the Portage Diversion, and the Shellmouth Dam on the Assiniboine. But even with these flood protection measures, in 1997 the province experienced a flood of 7.5 m, which caused 28,000 people to be evacuated and $500 million CAD in damage to property and infrastructure. Called "The Flood of the Century", the 1997 flood had a probability of occurrence of about 1 in 100, and came close to overcoming Winnipeg's existing flood protection system.

Towns upriver in Manitoba, forewarned by footage of Grand Forks buildings burning and covered in metres of water, built ring dikes to protect their homes and properties, and the province of Manitoba called in the Canadian Forces, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the provincial Department of Natural Resources. Thousands of volunteers also helped to build sandbag dikes around homes and property. An emergeny dike, later called the Brunkild Z-dike, 15 miles long, was constructed in a matter of days when it was realized that overland flooding threatened the City of Winnipeg.

Almost all of the ring dikes around the towns held, save one—St. Agathe. The town's dike system was prepared for the river approaching from the south, but the river had spread and swamped the town from the west.

At the flood's peak in Canada on May 4, the Red River occupied an area of 1,840 km² with more than 2,560 km² of land underwater. Nicknamed the "Red Sea", this temporary lake forced about 75,000 people to abandon their homes. $450 million in damage was caused.

The province of Manitoba asked the International Joint Commission (IJC) to provide a report on the flood event and to recommend measures to ensure further flood protection for the city of Winnipeg. Largely as a result of this study, the province now plans on expanding the floodway.

References

• Mike Jacobs, Ed. Come Hell and High Water. Grand Forks: Knight-Ridder, 1997.

External links

• CNN stories from the 1997 flood (http://search.cnn.com/cnn/search?Coll=cnn_xml&QuerySubmit=true&Page=1&source=cnn&sites=cnn&query=%22red+river%22+flood)
• CBC Archive on Red River flooding (http://archives.cbc.ca/300c.asp?id=1-70-670)
• GrandForksFlood.com (http://www.draves.com/gf/)
• NDSU Geology page on Red River floods (http://www.ndsu.edu/fargo_geology/floodphotos.htm)