A flood of floods - Minneapolis Fed

A flood of

loods

F E D E R A L R E S E R V E B A N K O F M I N N E A P O L I S

Regional Business & Economics Newspaper

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It’s rare in today’s media-soaked world for things to be understated. Small, eventrivial, events are sensationalized, framed as epic, over the top, bigger than life.

But for the floods of 2011, it might be the opposite: too widespread, torrentialand destructive to overstate their imprint across the Ninth District.

If you haven’t heard much about them, you live either on very high ground ornowhere near water, for it’s hard to ignore lazy rivers and streams that turn intoproperty vandals seemingly everywhere. Floods are also tragically photogenic; theymake for great news stories expressly because they are visible, personal, indiscrimi-nating and utterly heartless.

That’s what brought the national media to Minot, N.D., in late June when abiblical surge of water in the Souris River pushed through the middle of town.The spotlight also came to Billings, Mont., when a burst oil pipeline underneath araging Yellowstone River put a slick spin on an all-too-common disaster.

By RONALD A. WIRTZEditor

Above: Gavins Point

Dam in July, where

165,000 cubic feet of

water was discharged

per second, 50 percent

more than Niagara Falls.

Also in this issue

After the floodFinancial and other marks

will be left on communities

page 11

A new look at hydropowerNew energy proposals are

coming to district rivers

page 13Continued on page 2

Floods are common in the district, but the floods of 2011were anything but typical

In Minot, N.D., dikes built for a 100-year flood were no match for theSouris River, which inundated 4,100 homes and businesses.

A REPORT ON THE 2011 FLOODSfedgazetteO C T O B E R 2 0 1 1

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Zimbelman in mid-July. Three weeksafter the initial flood, “houses are stillup to the middle of the picture win-dow. It has been devastation. Andthat’s the good areas,” he said.

As such, the floods of 2011 can behard to appreciate as a headline newsstory. They were so widespread, so hugein volume and so long in duration thatthey read more like a novel in their scale.They forced thousands of people to fleetheir homes, sometimes for months.They inundated homes, damaged busi-nesses, ruined roads and bridges,turned parks into messy swimmingpools and swamped local budgets. Theyinterrupted and upended life for entirecommunities as never before. Floodcosts will likely run into the hundreds ofmillions of dollars in district states—andthose are just the public funds that arerelatively easy to track; the loss of privatewealth is mostly unknown and may runeven higher than public losses.

Somewhat overlooked in the chaosof floods is a backhanded feel-goodstory. Were it not for aggressive, pro-tective actions on the part of commu-nities—including private individuals,but also numerous federal, state andlocal government agencies—the floodsof 2011 would have been much worse,inflicting devastation far beyond hard-hit communities such as Minot and itsimmediate neighbors. Cities likeBismarck and Mandan (N.D.) andPierre and Dakota Dunes (S.D.) facedsignificant peril from floods, butadvance warning, heavy levee fortify-ing, community bootstrapping andeven a little bit of luck helped thesecommunities avoid catastrophe.

“A torrent of watereverywhere”Flooding is not unusual in NinthDistrict states. Flooding of somerivers—like the Red River, which flowsnorth between Minnesota and NorthDakota—is almost an annual ritual.This year, Fargo, N.D., saw the RedRiver rise 21 feet over flood stage, whichsounds dramatic until you learn thatthis is the third year running that theriver has threatened to inundate thecity. Two years ago, the river crested 23feet over flood stage and left behind anestimated $70 million in damage.

One of the big differences this yearwas that so much water filled so manyrivers and streams, reaching so manyplaces in the district, many of whichhadn’t seen significant flooding for 50years or longer. Although historicalcomparisons are difficult, the floods of2011 appear unprecedented in theirbreadth, depth and duration.

Ed Tinsley, administrator ofMontana Disaster and EmergencyServices, knows something aboutnature’s fury. He noted that the statehas “had its share of catastrophic disas-ters,” whether flood, drought, wildfire,even earthquake. While they take a toll,“the disastrous flooding of 2011 was anunprecedented series of events. ... As welook back, and even as we look ahead, ithas been an adventure on many levels.”

Andy Peterson travels the neighboringstate widely as head of the North DakotaChamber of Commerce: “I get into everycorner of the state. What I have witnessedis a torrent of water everywhere you go.”

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS)constantly monitors thousands ofstreamgages—depth sticks—to measurelevels across the country, including theNinth District. Data from these gagesshow the widespread nature of flood-ing, especially in Montana and NorthDakota (see map on page 3). BetweenApril 1 and July 31, streamgages in 74unique rivers, streams and other tribu-taries in Minnesota, the Dakotas andMontana hit flood stage—the point atwhich a river overtops its banks andspreads onto its flood plain. These tor-rents affected 150 unique locations—cities large and small, as well as unpop-ulated rural areas.

(The northwestern portion ofWisconsin and the Upper Peninsula ofMichigan, both part of the district, werenot included in this analysis becausethese areas had comparatively fewer

floods, especially large, unseasonal ones.)Nor do these figures represent the

full extent of flooding because notevery river and tributary is tracked bythe USGS, and even major rivers arestaked only intermittently, which meansthat “the number of locations that havehad flooding issues is actually higherthan what is reflected by our gage data,”according to Ryan Thompson, a hydrol-ogist in the South Dakota USGS office.

These floods were exceptionally three-dimensional, often coming at greatheight and velocity, and enduring forweeks, even months (see sidebar on page 5).

Regions of the Dakotas andMinnesota are also experiencing basinflooding—a type of slow-motion flood-ing of glacial lakes that have no naturalor significant outlets to release largeinflows from rain and snowmelt. (Theselakes were not included in the aboveflood counts and will be the subject of afuture fedgazette article.)

Not so nice to meet you,Mr. FloodAs one might imagine, such widespread,intensive flooding puts much life andproperty in harm’s way. There were fewfirm estimates of flood costs by the endof summer, especially from Montana orSouth Dakota, mostly because damagewas widespread, and floodwaters wereslow to recede and allow for assess-ments.

As of early September, the state ofNorth Dakota had identified more than$500 million in flood-related costs,including $305 million in public infra-structure damage; earlier in the sum-mer, it estimated that total public andprivate damages could exceed $1 bil-lion. Almost 8,800 individuals have beenapproved to receive $90 million in grantassistance from the Federal EmergencyManagement Agency (FEMA) for tem-porary housing and essential homerepairs. The U.S. Small BusinessAdministration has also approved $210million in low-interest disaster loans toresidents and businesses. (Those figureswill also change, given late-Septemberdeadlines for assistance.)

Suffice to say that where water invad-ed, most everything was affected—homes, businesses, roads, parks, waterand sewer infrastructure, schools—lifein general. (For more detail on the eco-nomic impact of floods, see article onpage 11.)

Minot was flood-zero. Despite a rush

ISSN 1045-3334

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One of theMinneapolis Fed’s congressionally mandated responsibilitiesis to gather information on the Ninth District economy. The fedgazetteis published quarterly to share that information with the district, whichincludes Montana, North and South Dakota, Minnesota, northwesternWisconsin and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

The opinions expressed in the fedgazette are expressly those of the authorsor of attributed sources and are not intended to represent a formal positionof this bank or the Federal Reserve System.

F E D E R A L R E S E R V E B A N K O F M I N N E A P O L I S

Regional Business & Economics Newspaper

E X E C U T I V E E D I T O R Kei-Mu Yi

S E N I O R E D I T O R David Fettig

E D I T O R Ronald A. Wirtz

MA N A G I N G E D I T O R Jenni C. Schoppers

R E G I O N A L E C O N OM I S T Tobias Madden

A S S O C I AT E E C O N OM I S T Rob Grunewald

S E N I O R W R I T E R Phil Davies

G R A P H I C D E S I G N E R S Rick CucciMark Shafer

In the end, however, the nationalmedia acted like a flood of their own:right here, right now and gone tomor-row. The real floods, on the other hand,stayed like an old college roommate,hanging around until everyone prayedfor them to leave. While many peoplemight have heard about the plight ofMinot, few can appreciate the flood’sduration in the city, said Mayor Curt

A flood of floods from page 1

Abstract:The floods of 2011 were historicalin breadth, volume and duration,particularly in the Dakotas andMontana. They forced thousandsof people to flee their homes,sometimes for months. They inun-dated homes, damaged businesses,ruined public infrastructure andswamped local budgets. The publiccost of floods—while still sketchy—will likely run into the hundreds ofmillions of dollars in district states;the private loss of wealth is mostlyunknown, aside from anecdotes,and possibly even higher. With theexception of Minot, N.D., it couldhave been much worse. Cities likeBismarck and Mandan (N.D.) andPierre and Dakota Dunes (S.D.)faced significant peril from floods.But advanced warning, heavy leveefortifying and community boot-strapping helped these communi-ties avoid much worse fates.

A F L O O D O F F L O O D S O C T O B E R 2 0 1 1

Page 2fedgazette

These floods were also exceptionally three-dimensional,often coming at great height and velocity,and enduring for weeks, even months.


Page 3fedgazette

to build up existing levees to ward offrapidly rising water, the city watchedhelplessly as the Souris River filled thevalley and with it the oldest portions ofthe town that had grown up around it.Some 4,100 structures—mostly homesand businesses—were inundated,about 80 percent of which took at leastsix feet of water on their main floor.An analysis by Job Service NorthDakota identified 283 businesses locat-ed in the flood zone. Affected busi-nesses included “hotels to insurancecompanies to Dairy Queen. It runs thegamut,” said David Waind, the city’sadministrator. He noted that “evenRed Cross is flooded out” and had toshift its daily office operations to themunicipal auditorium, the same build-ing from where it was coordinatingrelief help and emergency shelter forresidents. (See sidebar on page 8 formore on Minot.)

But while Minot received the lion’sshare of media attention, many otherplaces also suffered significant flooddamage. In Montana, the Dakotas and

Continued on page 4

Streamgage readings suggest a sense of scale of 2011 flooding

The U.S. Geological Survey has measuring sticks--called streamgages--scattered in the many rivers andtheir tributaries winding their way through districtstates. The above map identifies rivers and streamsabove flood stage anytime between April 1 and July

31 of this year and shows just how widespread theflooding was in the Ninth District, especiallythroughout the Dakotas and Montana. The map isalso a conservative illustration of flooding because itshows only those areas where the USGS has a marker.

For example, hundreds of miles of the MissouriRiver were above flood stage for most of the summer.But because its flow is constantly controlled (by theU.S. Army Corps of Engineers), the USGS has com-paratively few gages marking its depth.

Disaster assistance to Ninth District counties

When disaster strikes, FEMA has tiered aid programsthat reimburse local governments and residents forexpenses related to flood prevention and cleanup.Disasters are declared at the county level and officiallymade by the president of the United States in consulta-tion with FEMA. The first level of disaster aid is calledpublic assistance and is declared where flood-relatedcosts and damage to public property exceeds FEMA-

defined thresholds. Reimbursements go only to localgovernments. Individual assistance is disaster aid forhomeowners and businesses, and damage thresholds areconsiderably higher. Where designated, homeownersbecome eligible for grant assistance that tops out at about$30,000; businesses are eligible only for low-interest loansthrough the Small Business Administration.

Depth over flood stage

10 feet

5 feet

2 feet

Check onlineA dynamic version of this stream data

can be found in the fedgazette online.

The stream data map uses Google Public

Data beta for visualizing peak flood height,

duration of flood between April 1 and

July 31, and day of the highest peak for

each flood station in Minnesota, South

Dakota, North Dakota and Montana.

25

Public only

Individual only

Public and individual Not affected


Page 4fedgazette

Minnesota, two-thirds of all counties(193 in total) and 12 tribal reservationshave been declared flood disaster areasthis year, making governments in thosecounties and reservations eligible forfederal assistance to help pay for flood-related damages and other costs.

As of September, 45 counties andfive reservations in Montana and theDakotass were also eligible for individ-ual federal disaster assistance, whichsignifies much more extensive damage.The program offers up to $30,200 inindividual grant assistance to house-holds and makes low-interest loansavailable to homeowners and business-es, but eligibility is much stricter thanassistance for public infrastructuredamage.

In Montana, 70 percent of the state,local and tribal jurisdictions declaredemergencies in response to flooding.But even the counties that didn’tdeclare local emergencies still report-ed some flooding, said Monique Lay, aspokesperson for the state Disasterand Emergency Services Division. “So,truly, the flooding was statewide.” Sheadded that the state hasn’t had anindividual assistance declaration inover 20 years, “so this has been quitean adventure for us. It certainly wouldhave been easier to address had thedisaster been more concentrated. Thevastness of it has made it a muchlengthier and more complicatedresponse and recovery—very similarto the hurricanes that traveled all theway up the East Coast.”

The hardest hit areas included CrowAgency about 60 miles east of Billings(which itself saw flooding and nationalnews coverage when a gushingYellowstone River carved out enough ofits bottom to expose and break an oilpipeline). At Crow Agency, the home ofthe Crow Tribe, late-May flooding ofthe Little Bighorn River killed two peo-ple. About 300 people had to be evacu-ated, and water reached the main floorof 60 homes; 23 saw major damage.

The flood also knocked out the reser-vation’s water and sewer systems andclosed 70 miles of Interstate 90 for fivedays. In June, the tribe was forced to layoff 150 workers—about a fifth of itsworkforce—due to flooding.

About 20 miles west of Great Falls,the Sun River flooded 55 homes in itsnamesake city in June. Yet by mid-July,many still did not have drinking water—some wells had tested positive for coli-form bacteria—and portable toilets andshowers had to be brought in for resi-dents.

In the Dakotas, aside from Minot andits immediate small-town neighbors(like Burlington, which reportedly lostabout one-third of its 320 homes), theflood appears to have done its worst tolow-density residential areas without thecapacity or resources to mount adefense against rising waters. InBurleigh County, home to Bismarck, amarauding Missouri River damaged 450homes; 75 were severely damaged ordestroyed. Virtually all of them lay out-side the city.

Across the river in Morton County,another 75 or so homes were ravaged,mostly in township developments alongthe river north of the city of Mandan,according to Bruce Strinden, chairmanof the Morton County Board ofCommissioners. While the countywould like to have offered residentsmore protection, it could only providesandbags and fill. The rest was up toresidents. “It’s extremely difficult forgovernment entities to protect rural res-idences. We don’t have enough peopleto sandbag” all the property that wouldhave been necessary to protect ruraldevelopments, said Strinden.

The Missouri River found similarlow-lying victims as it flowed southward,near Pierre and Fort Pierre and in ruraldevelopments in southeastern counties.At Riv-R-Land Estates, a private subdivi-sion at the southeastern tip of SouthDakota, 52 of the 56 homes flooded and

Amid the flood: Heartache, hard work and hopeLinn Thomas and Peggy Petry are neighbors outside Mandan in ruralMorton County, N.D. In late May, the Missouri River was predicted to reachhistoric heights—enough to reach halfway up both homes. So the twojoined forces to move out their possessions and build a six-foot wall con-taining 30,000 sandbags around their two houses.

“We built the Great Wall of China and moved out in eight days,” saidThomas.

The water came as predicted, and the sandbag dikes held, but they werepowerless to prevent an immense influx of groundwater. Luckily, the prop-erty retained power, and both homeowners ran 15 pumps around the clockto remove thousands of gallons an hour of groundwater seepage—whichthey did for the next seven weeks—Thomas said during a visit in mid-July.They expected to have to keep pumping for several more weeks.

Having just come from his home—via boat—and standing on a highway-turned-boat-dock, Thomas said they’ve managed to keep their homes dry forthe most part; both houses have water in their crawl spaces, but their mainfloors are dry. If the pumps go down, “in two hours, we’ll have a lake in ourhouse,” he said. By about mid-July, Thomas had burned out three pumps.

He took turns with Petry’s two grown sons to keep an eye on both prop-erties. Thomas mans the pumps four days a week, and Petry’s sons coverthe other days. Thomas is an employee of Morton County. “I work the mostI can,” he said. “My bosses and co-workers are behind me.” The time off isunpaid, and Thomas said he has had to spend $5,000 in retirement fundsto buy pumps and other items in the fight to keep his house dry. He has noflood insurance. His wife is staying elsewhere, and the couple is getting$477 in rental assistance from FEMA.

Despite the personal and financial toll, Thomas and Petry both put apositive spin on their predicament. Petry, for example, said her electricitybill increased from a typical $150 per summer month to $740 because ofthe constant pumping—and she seemed almost happy. “It could have beenworse. I was expecting $1,000,” she said.

Asked about having to deal with the flood since late May, Thomas saidwith a tired voice but not a shred of sarcasm, “We have a lot of hope.” Henoted optimistically that the water level outside the dike had dropped,even though at the time it was less than an inch from peak. “We can’t looka month down the road. We try to get through tomorrow.”

—Ronald A. Wirtz

“Over the first two or three weeks,it was a panic” to get the dikes built, and then praying they would hold. —Ray Roggow, emergency services director, Union County, S.D.


Montana

North Dakota*

South Dakota

*Roughly 90 percent of the inundated homes in North Dakota were in the Minot area.Sources: Montana Department of Disaster and Emergency Services; North Dakota Office of Emergency Services; South Dakota Officeof Emergency Management

104

2,427

15

831

Destroyed(more than 10’)

Major(6’ to 10’)

Minor(2’ to 6’)

Slight damage(0.5’ to 2.0’)

7

102 256

967

301

221

416

238

Homes waterloggedNumber of flooded houses, by water depth on main living floor, identified by August

Table 1

State

Continued on page 6

Linn Thomas

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42 sustained major water damage,according to local officials.

Only grazed bythe bulletAmid the widespread flooding andsevere damage to some areas, many peo-ple and communities were fortunate,narrowly avoiding disaster.

In South Dakota, for example,roughly 2,800 homes were under volun-tary evacuation orders, and untoldnumbers of others were in the flood’spath, mostly on the Missouri River. Butfloods ultimately hit about 650 homes,according to August estimates. Outsidethe Minot catastrophe, about 500homes were inundated elsewhere inNorth Dakota—less than 10 percent ofthe (non-Minot) homes originallybelieved to be in the flood’s path. About600 homes were inundated in Montana.

In the southeastern South Dakotacounty of Yankton, some 400 homeswere believed to be in the Missouri’sfloodway, according to CarmenSchramm of the Yankton Chamber ofCommerce. But “actual water invadedabout 20-some (homes). … Not to min-imize [those affected], but we have a lotto be thankful for.”

Part of the reason for the lesserimpact was the nature of these floods.For one, the Missouri’s flow was so largeand swift that the river scoured itselfdeeper, allowing its expanded channelto hold more water. In some places, thisscouring reportedly took almost a footoff the river’s eventual crest.

But probably more important, thefloods announced themselves well inadvance—thanks to close tracking bythe USGS and the U.S. Army Corps ofEngineers—which helped mobilize pri-vate individuals and governments,either to protect assets or to move peo-ple and property to higher ground.

(It should be noted that the ArmyCorps has taken blistering criticism forits management of the Missouri Riverbefore and during the flood, as well asits subsequent predictions of floodcrests, which were frequently revisedupward during critical planning andmobilization stages in late May andearly June. These matters deal with,among other things, the Corps’ multi-headed and often conflicting missionsand are outside the scope of this article.Irrespective of the Corps’ performancein helping to mitigate the floods them-selves, or accurately predicting the tim-ing and size of crests, numerous com-munity officials lauded the agency forits help and expertise in building pro-

tective levees.)Trace a route down the Missouri

River—which overwhelmed virtuallyevery water level and flow rate onrecord since the dam-and-reservoir sys-tem was completed more than half acentury ago—and the potential for cata-strophic loss was palpable. For example,when the Corps released final projec-tions of flood peaks along the Missouri,Bismarck faced the likelihood that anestimated 5,550 structures, mostly homesbut also 70 commercial buildings, wouldbe inundated, according to Gloria David,the city’s public information officer.

Those projections jarred residentsand local governments into action.Over the next week or so, a total of 8million sandbags were filled inBismarck and the surrounding area.Businesses and residents—often aidedby higher-ground community mem-bers—walled off their properties as bestthey could, not knowing if the city couldbuild more substantial levees in time orwhether they would be on the dry sideof the levees if they were built.

In the span of a week, with majorhelp from the Corps, about nine milesof levees in the city and county werethrown up to protect everything possi-ble, given the time and material avail-able. Based on 2000 Census data andinundation estimates, the homes of14,000 people were shielded by theselevees and dikes. Thanks to the leveesand river crests that were a foot lowerthan predicted, no homes or businesseswithin the city limits of Bismarck wereinundated, David said.

Across the river in Mandan, city admin-istrator Jim Neubauer said roughly 420homes were in harm’s way. But not a sin-gle home or business was damaged byoverland flood waters, “mainly due to pro-tective measures that were put in place.”

Float down to Pierre, and communi-ty development coordinator ScottCarbonneau estimated that 400 to 500homes were initially at risk. The Corpsbuilt two levees protecting most of thecity’s southern flank and the wastewatertreatment plant, and the city reinforcedthose by tying them together with athird levee. In all, about three and ahalf miles of levee were built. As aresult, the city “was largely unscathed ina direct sense. I believe we have onlyseen one or two homes with actualfloodwater,” Carbonneau said.

In Fort Pierre, across the Big Muddy,an estimated 600 homes—in otherwords, most of them—“would have beeninundated and received substantial dam-age” given the river’s predicted crest,

Montana

27 differentbodies ofwater wereabove floodstage at somepoint sincespring

Sun River

55 homesinundatedin June

Many without drinkingwater into July

Minot

4,100 homesand businessesinundated

Bismarck

8 millionsandbagsfilled

Garrison Dam

Emergencygates openedfor the firsttime ever

Yellowstone River

Oil pipelinedug out andbroken bythe ragingriver

Roundup

Floodedtwice in twoweeks

North Dakota

15 differentbodies ofwater aboveflood stage byan average of6.5 ft., and foran average of46 days (as of August 1)

Pierre


Gavins Point

165,000 cfs50% morethan NiagaraFalls

Dakota Dunes

300,000 cubicyards of fillfor levees 1 dump truck every45 seconds

James River

Eight locationson the riverwere aboveflood stage formore than100 days

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River basins in the Ninth DistrictAlthough historical comparisons are difficult,the floods of 2011 appear unprecedented in their breadth, depth and duration.


Continued on page 8

Garrison DamMinot

Roundup Sandbags


Page 7fedgazette

Montana

27 differentbodies ofwater wereabove floodstage at somepoint sincespring

Sun River

55 homesinundatedin June

Many without drinkingwater into July

Minot

4,100 homesand businessesinundated

Bismarck


Garrison Dam

Emergencygates openedfor the firsttime ever

Yellowstone River

Oil pipelinedug out andbroken bythe ragingriver

Roundup

Floodedtwice in twoweeks

North Dakota

15 differentbodies ofwater aboveflood stage byan average of6.5 ft., and foran average of46 days (as of August 1)

Pierre


Gavins Point

165,000 cfs50% morethan NiagaraFalls

Dakota Dunes

300,000 cubicyards of fillfor levees 1 dump truck every45 seconds

James River

Eight locationson the riverwere aboveflood stage formore than100 days

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Garrison DamMinot

Roundup Sandbags

Garrison DamMinot

Roundup Sandbags

Garrison DamMinot

Roundup Sandbags

Photographs: Roundup, MT.—Larry Mayer, The Billings Daily Gazette, Garrison Dam, Riverdale, N.D.– Maj.Gen. David Sprynczynatyk, N.D. National Guard

N I N T H D I S -fedgazette

said Mayor Sam Tidball. The Corpsinstalled a dike protecting the older,eastern portion of the city, where mostof the city’s commerce takes place, butleft unprotected most residential areas,located to the north along the river.

But Corps policy is to build leveesonly where significant public infrastruc-ture—water and sewer plants, roads,schools and other public buildings—areat risk. So the Corps did not act to pro-tect all areas of a given city, even ifhomes were clearly in danger. As hap-pened in other cities, Fort Pierre hireda private contractor to build a seconddike two feet above projected floodstage to protect as many homes as possi-ble, Tidball said. After all the work,Tidball estimated that 25 homes wereinundated with water. “There was not aterrific amount of damage, which isamazing given the height of the river,”he said. “There wasn’t more major dam-age because we got the dikes built.”

Even where cities got involved inlevee building, difficult decisions had tobe made, because the exigencies oflevee placement often do not conformto the jagged boundaries of cities. “Youhate to see people unprotected, butthat’s the nature of dikes,” said BillWocken, Bismarck city administrator.

In that city, despite intensive leveebuilding and sandbag filling, pockets ofhomes went unprotected, like the well-to-do Southport neighborhood on thebanks of the Missouri, which the city con-troversially decided to leave on the wrongside of the levees. Southport residentsreportedly spent upward of $3 million oftheir own money to erect private leveesand pump out groundwater, successfullyprotecting 226 homes from flooding.

Earthen fences makegood neighborsNo single location probably benefitedmore from Army Corps levees thanDakota Dunes, S.D., a town of 2,500 sit-uated a stone’s throw from Nebraska

and Iowa in the southeastern corner ofthe state. About 460 homes in thisupscale bedroom community wouldhave filled to the rafters without a mas-sive, four-mile levee built over thecourse of about a week in June.

Ray Roggow is the emergency servic-es director for Union County, home toDakota Dunes. Ironically, Roggow wasfishing on an upstream stretch of theMissouri River when he received wordthat the Corps planned releases fromGavins Point Dam near Yankton thatwould ultimately inundate DakotaDunes downstream.

“I said, ‘Roll up your reels; we gottago’ because I knew we were in big trou-ble.” At the time, the Corps was pre-dicting discharges of 85,000 cubic feetper second, a record amount at thetime. A few days later, Roggow said,“85,000 went to a whole lot more”—eventually 165,000 cfs—and the wheelsof flood protection went from first tofifth gear with little shifting in between.“Over the first two or three weeks, it wasa panic” to get the dikes built, and thenpraying they would hold, Roggow said.

With dump trucks unloading every45 seconds, 300,000 cubic yards of fillwas spilled and graded as a sodden bar-rier between the river and threatenedhomes, up to 12 feet high in places. Asof August, not a single home behindthe levee had taken floodwater.

Among other heartaches, the flood“shut down one of the most unique golfcourses in South Dakota,” with its signa-ture hole number 18 and others under-water or bisected by the levee, Roggowsaid. “But had we not got the levees up, wewould have had devastation.”

Something in the waterBut make no mistake, there is misery,and it will linger. Homes and businessesinundated with water have months ofdreary, backbreaking cleanup ahead ofthem; tens of thousands of others,

They saw it coming. They just didn’t see this coming.Minot, N.D., captured the nation’s attention for a few days in late June

when the city discovered that a quarter of its homes would get flushed by alazy-turned-raging Souris River, which flows south from Canada, meandersthrough the heart of Minot and eventually makes its way back up to Canada.

On a normal summer day last year, the Souris flowed at a couple hun-dred cubic feet per second (cfs), a rate that would fill an Olympic-sizedswimming pool in about four minutes. By May, major flooding was pre-dicted, but existing levees were believed sufficient to avert severe damage.Built after a disastrous 1969 flood, the dikes were designed to protect thecity against a 100-year flood in which the Souris was expected to reach5,000 cfs, a fill rate of about 20 seconds for that same Olympic-sized pool.

“It worked as designed every year since it was built,” said David Waind, cityadministrator.

But record rain fell in May in northern Canada and flowed southward inthe Souris. Based on early warning and river crest estimates, the city twicehired contractors to raise dikes to withstand 11,000 cfs—the river’s record flowduring the 1969 flood.

It wouldn’t be enough to stop the Souris. Final estimates of river crestswere cartoonishly large—the type of deluge that occurs once every 500years. A late warning made matters worse; Minot received just three days’notice of the eventual river crest, in part because heavy rains came inremote parts of Canada where the government doesn’t maintain stream-gages. In contrast, most cities on the Missouri River received seven to 10

days’ notice of historicriver crests—advancewarning that can makea world of difference inflood preparation. SaidWaind, “If we [had]had early warning, itmight have taken theedge off of [damage]because we would havehad three or more[extra] days to prepare.It gave us very littletime to react.”

On June 23, the riveralso known as the LittleMouse roared to 29,000

cfs (see chart), almost three times its previous peak flow. Enough water to fillthat Olympic pool in three seconds swamped all man-made defenses; morethan 10,000 people were evacuated ahead of the flood, as the Souris eventu-ally rose 4 feet higher than ever recorded.

The flood gutted the valley, the oldest and most heavily developed portionof the city. Roughly 4,100 homes and businesses were inundated, most of themcatastrophically. The Souris remained at flood stage for weeks, wreaking havocon efforts to clean up and assess damage.

MinotReeling but resilient

About 450 homes in Burleigh County

About 75 homes in Morton County

Several hundred homes in Hughes County

Several hundred homes in Stanley County

Bismarck, N.D.

Mandan, N.D.

Pierre, S.D.

Fort Pierre, S.D. About 25 (all outside of levees)

1 or 2

0

5,500

420

About 600

Homes at flood level Homes inundated Total inundation in home county

400–500

0

Narrow misses

City


Continued on page 10

Page 8

Page 8

An earth mover packs down a dike as higher crest estimates of the Souris River were announced.

Table 2

An inland Souris tsunamiSouris River discharge at Canadian border (near Sherwood N.D.)

35

30

25

20

15

10

5

0

Average daily discharge (thousand cfs)

Jan Feb Mar* Apr May Jun Jul

2011

Previous high water discharge (1969)

2010

Source: U.S. Geological Survey


Page 10fedgazette

including those in Dakota Dunes, arecoping with groundwater in basementsand crawl spaces. Some rivers andstreams remained above flood stage wellinto August, and where water lingers,mold takes hold.

The duration of floods also leavesscant time for critical cleanup beforefrost and snow freeze the mess in a coldtime capsule until next year’s thaw. Andif water tables don’t drop before thefreeze, the aftermath of the floods willwreak additional havoc on public andprivate water and septic systems.

Local governments spent many mil-lions preparing for the flood and pro-tecting residents from it. But it will takemany more millions to repair the dam-age to roads, bridges and other publicinfrastructure once things dry out,though the financial strain is cushionedby federal and state disaster reimburse-ment programs.

The same is not true for homeownersand businesses, whose properties weregenerally not covered by insurance.Officials in Minot estimate that only 10percent of inundated homes wereinsured for flood, and anecdotes fromelsewhere suggest similarly low coverage.Most people didn’t buy insurance becausethey believed that flooding was unlikely;and if it did occur, existing levees andother measures would protect them. Now,only the most egregiously damaged areaswill receive grant assistance from federaldisaster programs, and it won’t comeclose to covering private losses.

The floods have also imposed myriadsmall indignities on community life. TheNorth Dakota State Fair in Minot had tobe canceled this year because of damageto the fairgrounds and the city’s generalstate of emergency. “For the city, it’s adifficult thing to lose,” said Waind, cityadministrator. But he admitted (andother local sources concurred), “I thinkthere was a little bit of relief.”

Many people spoke of stress anddepression, and of a grieving processsimilar to that experienced with the lossof a loved one. Some of that grief is overtrees—millions upon millions—that arefeared drowned because roots havebeen submerged for weeks on end,starved of oxygen.

Communities likely will have torebuild with less help from the outsidecompared with previous major disasters.In the 1997 flood that devastated GrandForks, the city received a pile of federalmoney from a variety of agencies tohelp affected homeowners, businessesand local governments, with grantmoney for home buyouts, new floodprotections, even new home building.

Said one North Dakota state official:“Grand Forks was made whole.”

While Minot will receive significantreimbursement for the money spentpreparing for and cleaning up after theflood, fiscal realities at the federal levelmean the city and its residents will bearmore of the costs of flooding—includ-ing improvements to existing flood pro-tections—than Grand Forks. “We’retelling them that. You might as well tellthem the facts,” said the state official.

In Pierre, Mayor Laurie Gill wasasked if the city expected any addition-al support beyond FEMA assistance.“I’m not getting my hopes up,” she said.

At the same time, Gill and otherlocal sources repeatedly expressedpride at the can-do mentality of theircommunities. Residents across the dis-trict played an integral role in efforts toprotect the property of family, friends

and complete strangers, particularlyearly on when communities were scram-bling to develop and execute broadersafeguards. An estimated 15 million to18 million sandbags, and possibly more,were filled by local government work-ers, residents and even nonresidentslooking to help.

Gill insisted on that bootstrappingearly on. Once it was known how severethe flooding would be, the city told resi-dents “to prepare as if there is no govern-ment [flood] protection. We didn’t wantto get into that pickle.” City engineers,with the help of private contractors, wentneighborhood to neighborhood measur-ing property elevations and scratchinglines on homes to show people how highthe flood would get and telling themwhere they could find sandbags.

After the floods, Pierre is facing steepcosts—upward of $13 million, according

to the city—for myriad repairs to roads,water systems, parks, a municipal golfcourse and other items. “It would beeasy to get sucked into the gloom anddoom, the oh-woe-is-us,” said Gill. “Butthere’s a [recovery] plan, and we’reorganized.” She pointed to recentefforts to oversee cleanup and debrismanagement, a recovery group thatincludes community stakeholders and apublic facilities committee that is focus-ing on long-term restoration of the city.

The city is also sitting on a healthyfund balance of $11 million, or about25 percent of the city’s annual budget.Said Gill: “We’ve done everything wecould over the years to save money, andnow everybody sees why we do that.”

—Aaron Richins, research assistant, contributed flood data and other research

to this article.

f

One of the most widespread but hidden effects of flood-ing in the district involves groundwater. Though manycommunities avoided widespread inundation, theheight of floods in the Missouri and Souris rivers andtheir many tributaries pushed up groundwater tableseverywhere, sending water seeping—sometimes gush-ing—into basements and crawl spaces.

Cheri Kilby is the head of emergency services inFergus County, Mont. There, she said groundwaterseepage “has been almost unreal. We have had peopletalk about water shooting up from cracks in the base-ment. We have springs where there were not springsbefore. Hillsides are slipping down and taking founda-tions with them.”

Groundwater seepage can usually be managed with asump pump or two. But the longevity of floods in manylocations meant that homeowners were battlinggroundwater seepage on a 24/7 basis for weeks or evenmonths. The failure of a pump—or even a temporarypower outage—can lead to significant water damage.Even if pumping succeeds in keeping water at bay, highgroundwater also creates tremendous pressure onstructures; foundations can buckle. And like flooding,damage from groundwater is often not covered byhomeowners insurance.

Save for the many pump hoses that snake out ofhomes in affected areas, these problems are mostly outof view, so no one knows the full extent of the problem.But anecdotes about groundwater problems abound.One Montana restoration business said it received 450calls from people with flooded basements in Billings,Joliet and Roundup in early June. One store in theBillings region reportedly sold 150 water pumps in anhour; another store, 80 pumps in 40 minutes.

The city of Pierre, S.D., conducted a (nonscientific)survey of area residents, including those across the riverin Fort Pierre. Among 314 respondents, 240 had waterin their crawl space or basement, more than two-thirdswere already dealing with mold issues, 54 experiencedstructural movement and one in 10 had experienced asewer backup. Separately, Fort Pierre Mayor Sam Tidballestimated that about half of the 800 or so households inthe community were dealing with groundwater seepage.

Rick Jensen owns several small businesses, most ofthem in or near downtown Pierre, which was threatenedby flooding from the Missouri River. Thanks to major lev-ees, downtown was spared, but virtually everyone is cop-ing with encroaching groundwater. Jensen said he hasbought 12 sump pumps for his properties, at $140 each.

The long duration of the Missouri River flood bringsadditional challenges as winter approaches. BlakeBarringer, manager of Brosz Engineering and presidentof the Pierre Economic Development Corp., said that ifthe ground freezes before high water tables recede, thecity faces all kinds of problems. “We’re going to havebusted basements, water mains and roads.”

—Ronald A. Wirtz

A seeping feeling

If water tables don’t drop before the freeze, the aftermath of the floods will wreak additional havoc on public and private water and septic systems.


Multiple pump hoses carry groundwater over a dike in rural Union County, S.D.

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