Flood 2009

Normally I reserve this blog for "Kade Only" related topics. BUT we were directly affected with the March of 2009 Fargo flood and thus affected our little man too. He doesn't know it now, but he was part of history at just 14-1/2 months old.

Things started out on Friday, March 20th when we heard the news that the Red River and Wild Rice Rivers (lucky us we live between the two) were going to reach record levels, which surpassed the 1997 flood. Chad ordered up 2 truck loads of sand so we could begin sand bagging our home that Saturday the 21st. We called my brother in Grand Forks and Casey drove all the way from Bismarck to help us fill about 1,500 bags that Saturday. The two trucks are pictured below...

I snapped a pic out our window of Chad talking with the neighbor. Thanks to his foresight to plan early and plan for the worst, we came out with a dry basement!Saturday night and into Sunday, Chad felt pretty good about his number of sand bags and we weren't sure we were going to even lay them around the house yet. (A HUGE undertaking). Then early Sunday evening we heard the levels were going to get to possibly 41 feet. (18 feet is normal flood stage). Chad freaked out and ordered another 2 truck loads and predicted we wouldn't go to work all that next week. Honestly, I thought he was a huge worry wart and thought we were wasting all our time and energy as this house hadn't flooded in 1997. Chad tends to be way safe and I'm on the opposite side of the spectrum and would hate to take the risk of all the hard work for nothing. I'm really bad I know! I wasn't the only one, a lot of the neighbors didn't think we would see the river levels reach our homes either. Nonetheless, EVERY single neighbor helped each other out day and night with back breaking work, "just in case". Chad's employer was so generous and actually paid their employees to come to our home and help us sand bag that Monday & Tuesday. Take a look down our road (kind of hard to see), this was when things calmed down and I was able to take a break and get a picture. There were way more cars earlier in the day and a person could barely drive down the roads due to all the cars. Literally, buses of volunteers came to help. Grandma Nancy came at a moments notice when I called her on Monday. She was up within hours to watch Kade so I could help with the sandbagging efforts.
I took some pictures of the melted snow in our yard. So these would be "before" flood pics. It was strange to see that much water in the yard, but I didn't even have a clue what we would see in the next day or two to come.

THEN Wednesday the 25th came. Mom stayed with Kade while Chad & I went to the store for some final supplies as we were suspecting to be surrounded by water and stranded . "Huh" I thought to myself with my unbelieving mind set (kept that to myself though just in case we did flood, I'd hate to be the dumb one-ha!) Whatever, I'd go along for these stupid supplies that we wouldn't need (in my mind anyways). As we neared town, we noticed the Wild Rice river had flooded all the fields across the road from us, overnight. We were panicked and decided today is the day to get Kade out of the house and into town, this was going to BE BAD. Also the Red River had started to creep into our neighbors yards and across our road. So we hightailed it back home and threw our necessities into the car and Kade & I stayed at our friend's Amanda & Devin's in Moorhead from Wednesday until MONDAY. Devin was so awesome and he drove back with Chad and helped us save our home for nearly 6 DAYS! Never thought I'd be an EVACUEE! My poor mother came with us too, it was so nice to have her addtional help.

Here are the pictures Chad took of our house and neighborhood. There were actually two houses that lost the fight and flooded depsite their best efforts.

You couldn't access our house without tractors & front loaders (notice the Coast Guard Airboat)...

Our home "surrounded by water"...guess I was wrong :-( Correction, now it had turned to ICE and made matters worse!

Devin, Standing in the road by our mail box

Driving sandbags out of our drive way for the neighbors...

Picture out our front window, the dike is holding!

Neighbors being transported to help houses that were flooding...

My beautiful?? new lake shore view, ha! Taken out my patio window, once again the dikes are holding!

Our neighbor, he made it through the night without losing his home...he fought hard all hours of the night and it came close but VICTORY was his!

Sadly, this one was lost and Chad had helped with their efforts from Wednesday when the water started rising until Thursday at 5:30 am. The house was lost at 6:30 am.

3 Coast Guard helicopters that were making air rescues in our area.

The deer that normally live by the river, had no where to go. Chad took these out of our kitchen window. They just had to hang out in our yards. Lets hope Chad was too busy for Deer huntin'-ha!

Finally on Monday the 30th (my B-Day) Chad picked up Kade and I from the Mosbrucker's to take us back home. Kade was a happy camper as we had been gone for 6 days and 5 nights! We weren't out of the clear yet. I had to unstrap Kade from his car seat when we got to our road because they were still majorly flooded and barely passable. For Chad to get out, our neighbor had to guide him by 4 wheeler while Chad followed with the truck. I left my vehicle in town as the water was to high for me to pass through. Here is a pic through the front window of the pickup...Through all of this we are so THANKFUL for all the help of family, friends, and strangers! This community really banded together and broke their backs helping out one another. Thanks to my mom for staying with us through this whole ordeal and to Shawn & Casey for their hard work sandbagging. Thanks so much to the Mosbrucker's as they provided a safe place for me, Kade (& Hunter too)! Devin also sacrificed 6 nights to stay at our place and work his tail off to save our home. Just thanks to everyone who helped us out and kept us in their prayers. We are very grateful!!!