Flood Magazine Special Section Complete

APRIL 16, 2017
2OTH FLOOD ANNIVERSARY

G R A N D F O R K S H E R A L D C O M M E M O R AT I V E E D I T I O N
WATER UNDER THE BRIDGE

Proudly Serving
our CommunitieS,
then and now
Since 1939 Your Ho

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d & Ope n Gr
Owne Grand Forks (4) ocer
Family East Grand Forks - Crookston
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THANK YOU
To everyone who filled and threw sandbags for working tirelessly to the end,
To our surrounding towns and neighbors for taking us in when we had to evacuate,
To the firefighters for saving downtown and to the city workers for getting us back up and running,
To the Grand Forks Herald and the radio and TV stations for keeping us connected,
To our Mayors, City Council members, State and Federal Legislators, and other public officials for
being our voice,
To the Red Cross, FEMA, Joan Kroc, President Clinton, Soul Asylum, and hundreds of other
volunteer and donor organizations locally and around the country for their support,
And to the entire community for building and energizing Grand Forks into an even better
place to live today than we were before. Long Live the Red River Valley.
Inc. Magazine’s 50 Best Places to Work in America | Architect Magazine Top 50 US Firm 100% EMPLOYEE OWNED
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4
“You may encounter many defeats,
but you must not be defeated.
In fact, it may be necessary to
encounter the defeats, so you
can know who you are, what you
can rise from, how you can still
come out of it.”
-Maya Angelou
5
Eric Hylden/Grand Forks Herald
Korrie Wenzel
GRAND FORKS
HERALD PUBLISHER
WATER
UNDER THE BRIDGE
Kirsten Stromsodt
GRAND FORKS
I
HERALD EDITOR
Janelle Vonasek n the darkest days after the replaced by dreams of better
GRAND FORKS HERALD
ENTERPRISE EDITOR
Flood of 1997 — in the mess things. The once-scarred cities
and the mud and when all are healed, whole again. And our
HERALD WRITERS seemed lost — the people of homes feel like home again.
Brad Dokken
Sam Easter
Grand Forks and East Grand The Herald would like to
April Baumgarten Forks felt their hearts sink thank all who helped us take
Pamela Knudson along with their most precious a look back and those who
Andrew Haffner possessions. shared their stories of how faith
HERALD PHOTOGRAPHY
The furious floodwaters of the and hard work brought us new
Eric Hylden mighty Red River seemed to peace living side by side our
Jesse Trelstad wash away our hopes, but now temperamental river.
Archive images from Herald and
Knight Ridder photographers 20 years later, the communities
are back stronger than ever.
DESIGN
Feelings of despair have been JANELLE VONASEK
Sara Slaby HERALD ENTERPRISE EDITOR
Carli Greninger
Janelle Vonasek
Water Under the Bridge copyright 2017 by Grand Forks Herald, a property of Forum Communications Co. All rights reserved. Printed in the United
CONTRIBUTOR States of America. No part of this magazine may be used or republished in any manner without written permission. For information, write to Grand
Norah Kleven Forks Herald, Box 6008, Grand Forks ND 58206-6008.
6
10
THE FLOOD STORY COMES FULL CIRCLE
Blizzard after ornery blizzard, the winter of 1996-97 piled nearly 100 inches of
snow on Grand Forks and East Grand Forks. A spring flood was imminent,
but in the early days of April few would guess its magnitude for destruction.
Twenty years after the shock and shattered hopes, the cities have charted a
robust road to recovery. Rebuilt with the strength, faith and determination of
their people, the cities celebrate vibrant renewal.
34 AND THE WATER CAME RUSHING IN

LINCOLN DRIVE
Displaced residents are resettled and the ghosts of

Lincoln Drive have long since gone to bed. Whole
neighborhoods were lost to the raging Red River, but
the close-knit community has come alive again by
sharing space for a grand park and the winding, well-
traveled Greenway recreational area.
50
RIVERSIDE PARK
NEW LIFE IN AN OLD NEIGHBORHOOD
Floodwaters reached the rooftops in the Riverside Park area,
home to some of the city’s earliest residents. Deep roots held fast
though for the people who fell in love with the neighborhood’s
idyllic charm. Bound to rebuild, they stayed, saved the city’s
historic swimming pool and rejuvenated the district with the
laughter of children as new families moved in.
7
COVER: Grand Forks firefighter Mike
Sande had been a firefighter for about
two years when the flood hit. Here he
is today, holding an iconic photo of
himself and a teammate fighting to
save downtown in ice-cold floodwater.
The framed photo was taken by St. Paul
Pioneer Press photographer Bill Alkofer.
Grand Forks firefighters Mike Sande

(left) and Randy Johnson battle the April
19, 1997, fire that destroyed or severely
damaged 11 downtown buildings.
Bill Alkofer, St. Paul Pioneer Press
8
58
DOWNTOWN GRAND FORKS
A PHOENIX RISES FROM THE RUINS
As water rushed through the downtown streets of Grand Forks,
heartache turned to tears of despair when fire swallowed the Security
Building. Firefighters were unable to quench the flames before they
jumped to 10 more buildings. Some worried the severely scarred
business district never would come back. But flood and fire sparked a
re-imagined downtown, and it rose again “like a phoenix.”
EAST GRAND FORKS

EGF STANDS FOR
66 ‘EVERYBODY GOT FLOODED’
With only a handful of the city’s homes staying high and dry,
longtime East Grand Forks Mayor Lynn Stauss sums up the
tragedy aptly. Today, the city is stronger than ever with its lively
downtown and busy state park, as well as its stately City Hall, new
library, schools, parks and neighborhoods.
UNIVERSITY OF NORTH DAKOTA

COMMAND CENTRAL,
HAVEN FOR THE HOMELESS 74
The floodwaters soaked more than 70 buildings and damaged 69 miles of steam,
electrical and sewer infrastructure on the UND campus, yet the university was able to
reach out to help the greater community. It became command central for Grand Forks
after water chased city leaders out of their own offices. Semester classes shut down two
weeks early, and more than 1,000 evacuees found refuge in the emptied residence halls.
We’ll never forget how our

community responded to
the devastation of 20 years
ago, with hundreds of
selfless acts of courage and
care as we faced impossible
challenges. Xcel Energy is
TOGETHER, WE ROSE proud to continue serving

this strong community.
To learn more, visit
TO THE CHALLENGE. xcelenergy.com/Community.
© 2017 Xcel Energy Inc.
9
A motorist uses his car door as a shield on Dec. 17, 1996, as

Blizzard Betty’s blustery 40-mph winds and 50-below wind
chill blasted the region. Betty was the second of a record eight
blizzards to hit the Red River Valley in a season.
Dan Diedrich/Grand Forks Herald
20 YEARS LATER
FLOOD COMES FULL CIRCLE

“I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.” 2 Timothy 4:7
BY BRAD DOKKEN
GRAND FORKS HERALD
That passage from the Bible in many swept in from the southwest as a by dikes topped with clay and sandbags
ways, and on many levels, sums up the “Colorado Low” on April 4, 1997, and to about 52 feet. And while the National
struggles Grand Forks and East Grand unleashed a barrage of rain, snow, ice Weather Service initially predicted the
Forks faced and overcame along the road and winds of more than 60 mph as she Red would crest at 49 feet, the river kept
to recovery after that fateful spring 20 snapped power lines like twigs and
rising before cresting Monday, April 21 at
years ago. triggered prolonged power outages
The wild weather ride that culminated across the region. 54.11 feet.
in the Red River Flood of 1997 actually Gathered around battery-operated For context, flood stage is 28 feet for
began in November 1996 with a blizzard radios, families huddled together under the Red River in Grand Forks and East
and continued the next five months with blankets to stay warm. Grand Forks, and normal summer levels
seven more blizzards. The names of those Blizzard Hannah dumped 7 inches of would be in the 14- to 16-foot range.
storms forever are etched in the annals of snow in Grand Forks to bring the winter Hannah was the knockout punch
local history. total to a whopping 97.2 inches, breaking
leading up to the Flood of 1997, a disaster
Andy. Betty. Christopher. Doris. Elmo. the record set the previous winter.
Franzi. Gust. … And finally, Hannah, Two weeks later, water engulfed Grand of epic proportions that forever changed
arguably the cruelest of them all. Forks and East Grand Forks as the Red the face of Grand Forks and East Grand
The final blizzard in a winter that topped its banks and inundated city storm Forks.
refused to give way to spring, Hannah sewers. The two cities were protected In many ways, for the better.
10
Snowblowers did not stay parked for
long during the winter of 1996-97.
Eight blizzards dumped almost 100
inches of snow on the region.
11
HARD TO IMAGINE National media descended in droves,

The two cities as they are today, with waiting for the disaster that surely was
their restaurants, stores, new schools, coming.
movie theaters, parks and green space, As panic levels began to rise that
would have been difficult to envision April Friday, April 18, local radio stations with
elevation maps were barraged with calls Rural power lines in Norman County, Minn., are reduced
19, 1997, a beautiful Saturday when the sun to splinters after Blizzard Hannah coated them with ice
shone brightly and the promise of spring from frenzied homeowners wanting to and 44-mph winds leveled them. More than 300,000
filled the air. know if their homes were in the floodplain people were without power, some for more than a
week, after the April storm.
That promise was lost in the waves of and at what level they would remain Bill Alkofer/St. Paul Pioneer Press
destruction that rolled through the streets protected. Military personnel, residents
of both communities. Dikes in the Lincoln and volunteers from across the region
Drive area on the south end of Grand scrambled to fill sandbags and build up press run cut short when water hit the
Forks had begun failing the previous dikes in a losing effort to keep pace with
newspaper’s downtown building about
morning, and low-lying areas quickly filled the rising water.
midnight.
with water. Then came the sirens, the eerie blaring
The edition was the last to roll off the
The “thwak, thwak, thwak” of that filled residents with horror as they
faced the inevitable reality: They’d fought presses in the downtown building. By
helicopters flying overhead and the
warning beeps of heavy equipment were the good fight, but it wasn’t enough. noon that day, 75 percent of Grand Forks
constants, and the sounds still trigger About 3:30 p.m. April 18, a dike just was under mandatory evacuation. More
flood flashbacks today for many of the south of the Louis Murray Bridge in East than 90 percent of East Grand Forks was
people who were there to hear them. Grand Forks gave way, flooding the city’s evacuated by 7 p.m.
In the days leading up to the flood, entire Point area. By 9:30 p.m., water was
volunteers, dressed in the obligatory flowing into downtown Grand Forks. The A MAYOR REMEMBERS
knee-high rubber “flood boots,” were on Kennedy Bridge on Gateway Drive, the
Former Grand Forks Mayor Pat Owens
round-the-clock dike watch patrolling the last connection between the two cities,
remembers those two days as being the
muddy banks of the river. Others headed closed late that night, forcing evacuees
low points.
for “Sandbag Central” west of Interstate seeking to cross the river 70 miles south
29 to join students and volunteers from to Fargo. After spending much of April 18 at the
other towns to fill thousands of sandbags Floodwaters rolled into Sherlock Park in Grand Forks Police Department, where
in an effort that by Wednesday, April 16, East Grand Forks about 11 p.m. the Emergency Operations Center was
moved full-speed-ahead 24 hours a day. “Broken dikes, shattered hopes,” read housed in the basement, Owens says she
Everyone faced struggles, and everyone the headline in the Saturday, April 19 drove home sometime between 9 and 10
pitched in to help as best as they could. edition of the Grand Forks Herald, a p.m. to clean up and wash some clothes.
Tim Holt takes a breather while digging out

after Blizzard Elmo. The blizzard hit Jan. 14
with devastating winds of 50 mph.
Bill Alkofer, St. Paul Pioneer Press
12
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“The water in the parking lot was up over the top of ORDER READY FOR PICKUP
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Then the phone rang about 1 a.m. It was a city staffer TO THE
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Minutes later, Owens confronted one of the toughest
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I had done because boy, everything started breaking
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The water also forced the EOC to pack up and head
001549100r1
for higher ground on the UND campus, Herald archives
show.
As the river continued to rise, Owens said she’d never
forget the reaction of a city employee, an engineer who OPEN YEAR ROUND TO THE PUBLIC • BAR & GRILL •
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since has moved from Grand Forks.
“He came and sat with me because I was just kind of
sitting there thinking, and he said, ‘Pat’ — he had tears
in his eyes. He put his elbows on his knees and put his
head down — and he said, ‘I failed. I failed.’
“And I said, ‘What do you mean you failed?’ And he
said, ‘The dikes are breaking in Lincoln Drive’ and so
forth, and I said, ‘You have not failed. You did every
single thing humanly possible to protect the people of
this city.’ So I said, ‘Never, ever feel you have failed.’
The Grand Forks County Historical society grounds and buildings

are available to tour from May 15 to September 15. Tours are
conducted daily from 1-5pm, other times by appointment.
The Society maintains seven museum buildings:

The Myra Museum, Campbell House, Carriage House, Original Grand
Forks Post Office, One-room School, Lustron House and a replica
1930s Mobil Gas Station. Plus our gazebo is a favorite wedding venue.
Annual events include Ice Cream Social/Band Concerts,
History Rocks, School House Days, Legends of Terror Haunted
House, Half Pint Haunt and Holiday Open House and
“Entertaining History”, our free winter lecture series.
2405 Belmont Rd
Grand Forks, ND 58201
The Rev. William Sherman (left), of St. Michael’s Catholic 701-775-2216
001553822r1
Church in Grand Forks, and Ronnie Ford patrol a dike on

April 17 in the Riverside neighborhood. grandforkshistory.com
Chuck Kimmerle/Grand Forks Herald
13
WATER UNDER
THE BRIDGE
THE FLOOD STORY
COMES FULL CIRCLE
“And that stuck with me because I

remember looking at his face. It was a
very personal thing to everybody who
worked on it, because you wanted to
make sure you were working for the
people of Grand Forks and East Grand
Forks. … I had emotions, too, sometimes,
where I would sit and put my hands over
my face and cry.”
BAD TO WORSE
The situation, already dire, was about to
get even more grim.
In the cruelest of ironies, fire broke out
in downtown Grand Forks shortly after 4
p.m. April 19. An electrical problem in a
flooded building caused the fire, but with
4 feet of water flowing through the city’s
streets, firefighters had a difficult time
reaching the blaze.
There was no manual for fighting a fire
in those conditions.
“It was very clear when we were going
downtown to fight the fire that our trucks
were going to become submerged,” Grand
Forks Fire Chief Peter O’Neill said. “We
went down for a couple of hours but
couldn’t do much.”
A plane dropping a red fire retardant
like the kind used to fight forest fires flew
over the city about 7 p.m., but the effort
couldn’t stop the blaze, which burned for
22 hours, Herald archives show.
By the time it was over, 11 buildings there’s a little current, it can be hard to get While Johnson checked the hydrant,
were destroyed or badly damaged, and back up.” Sande in the photo was looking up at the
downtown Grand Forks resembled a Sande said his partner’s waders filled top of the downtown parking ramp.
watery war zone. with water as he leaned over to check “There was a fire engine down there,
Mike Sande was among the firefighters the hydrant, which had no water pressure and I think we ended up leaving it down
from the Grand Forks Fire Department and proved to be of no use in battling the there,” Sande said. “I think we may have
to battle the fire. Standing in waist- blaze. ruined that one. It got in a little deep, but it
deep water as flames and black smoke Johnson today is a captain with the St. still had some hose on it.
poured from the Security Building in the Paul Fire Department. “If we could have gotten water up there
background, Sande is pictured in one “You notice in the photo, I was the from that hydrant, we could have doused
of the iconic images from that fateful smart one,” Sande said, chuckling at the a lot of those embers that started some of
afternoon. memory. “I was standing behind him. He’s the buildings on fire.”
Today, 20 years later, Sande says some leaning down in the water, and that water Now a captain with the Grand Forks
of the memories from that day have faded, was so cold, so his waders, everything Fire Department, Sande, 52, had been a
but he remembers standing next to Randy was filling up. He ended up with some firefighter only a couple of years when
Johnson, a firefighter also in the photo, form of hypothermia.” the flood and fire hit. Like every other
who is reaching into bone-chilling water Hypothermia is a dangerous medical firefighter that day, Sande said he’d never
to check a fire hydrant. condition that results when the body loses seen anything like the flooded buildings
The current was strong, and they should too much heat. burning.
have been wearing life jackets, Sande “I didn’t get down that low, so my “It was kind of a fog, really,” he said.
said. waders didn’t fill up with water, and I Sande said the firefighters took cover in
“It was a little early on, and we weren’t didn’t end up with hypothermia,” Sande the DeMers Avenue building that housed
quite thinking,” Sande said. “If you fall over said. “There were a number of guys who the KCNN radio station while the plane
in waders and they fill up with water and did, though.” dropped fire retardant. Later that night, a
14
couple of large trucks towing lowboy Grand Forks Air Force Base
personnel, North Dakota
trailers hauled pumper trucks into the National Guardsmen, high
downtown area so firefighters could douse school and university
buildings that by then had burned to students and volunteers
work into the night
mostly rubble. forming a human chain to
O’Neill, who was deputy fire chief at stack sandbags along the
rising Red River.
the time of the flood, said the idea for the John Stennes
lowboys came from Harold Twitero, head Grand Forks Herald
mechanic with the Fargo Fire Department,
who’d seen footage of the fire on the
evening news. Kathy LaVoi sits on the
dike around her home in
“He called the Grand Forks Fire the Burke Addition south
Department and suggested the lowboys,” of Grand Forks on April
O’Neill said. “At the time, when they used 18. About a foot of water
was in the basement by
to test their equipment, they would have noon, and LaVoi couldn't
to draft water from (the Red River) and keep up.
Chuck Kimmerle
used to put trucks on lowboys to reach Grand Forks Herald
out to the dikes.”
O’Neill said the National Guard already
had the equipment on hand at the nearby
Industrial Park, and the pumper trucks
were loaded up by 8 or 9 p.m. April 19.
In hindsight, the idea of using the
lowboys was a stroke of brilliance.
15
“If (the lowboys) had been waiting for us right away,

we probably could have been down there, and we could
have been spraying the tops of those buildings and
saving them,” Sande said. “But obviously, that takes time
to get those things here.”
Eventually, Sande said, exhaustion overcame the
excitement of fighting the watery fire.
“At that point, it might have still felt like ‘Hey, this is
kind of fun,’” he said. “Not fun that things are burning,
but I’m getting some action here; we’re right in the
middle of it.
“But it didn’t take too long after that, when you don’t
sleep for four or five days, to figure out this isn’t fun
anymore. I’ll take doing nothing.”
Sande says he doesn’t remember seeing Bill Alkofer,
the Park River, N.D., native who took the famous
photograph while covering the flood and fire for the St.
Paul Pioneer Press.
“I don’t know that I saw him down there right when
that picture was taken, but after that, I remember seeing
him,” Sande said. “I think he slipped through the cracks
and was sneaking around down there. We had lots of
people who were straggling down there in buildings,
and we spent a lot of time getting those people out or
figuring out where they were.”
RECALLING THE RUINS

As it always does even on the darkest days, the
sun came up again April 20, 1997, ushering in another
beautiful morning, but an eerie quiet had settled over the
border cities.
The fire continued to smolder in downtown Grand
Forks, where five buildings on North Third Street
were destroyed. Monte Paulsen, a Herald contributor,
described the scene this way after touring the damage:
Clouds of steam rose lazily from the mounds of twisted
metal and blackened brick lining Third and Fourth streets
on Sunday afternoon as Grand Forks leaders struggled to
figure out how their city will rise from the worst disaster it
has ever faced.
Small fires licked at the water’s edge Sunday, finishing
off what Saturday’s inferno had left behind. Trees,
benches, dumpsters and debris of all descriptions surged
through downtown, whisked along by currents up to 25
miles an hour. Giant U.S. Army Reserve trucks and U.S.
Coast Guard skiffs prowled the streets as Grand Forks
firefighters battled the downtown blaze from pumper
trucks hauled in atop massive military flatbeds.
By Sunday, April 20, most residents of Grand Forks
and East Grand Forks had left town.
Sande’s wife, two kids and in-laws — like so many
other people in the two cities — had evacuated
to Bemidji. Other residents scattered to the wind,
evacuating to communities such as Crookston, Grand
Forks Air Force Base and Devils Lake, to name just a
few. The lack of cellphones, a rarity in 1997, made helter-
skelter evacuees feel even more alone and deeper in
despair.
Water still reaches the rooftops of houses in the Lincoln Drive

neighborhood of Grand Forks on April 28, more than a week after the flood.
J. Albert Diaz/Miami Herald
16
Grand Forks firefighter Steward Chase (left) and Bob Karel carry
a resident of the Ryan House through the flooded lobby of the
senior citizens apartment building on April 19. Firefighters and
the Coast Guard began moving the building’s residents at 4
a.m. as the city continued its evacuation.
Bill Alkofer/St. Paul Pioneer Press
According to a Herald story, about 1,500 East Grand

Forks residents passed through Crookston High School
during those two disastrous days seeking shelter,
clothing and other necessities.
Across the region, communities opened their arms to
the bedraggled, flood-stricken evacuees.
Still, there were people who refused to leave
their homes, despite the flooding and damage to
infrastructure such as electricity. Some who had waited
too long had to be rescued by helicopter in The Point
area of East Grand Forks.
Grand Forks officials announced plans to conduct a
street-to-street search for people who hadn’t evacuated
their homes as ordered.
By Sunday afternoon, April 20, water from the English
Coulee was spreading across the UND campus, and
Helping
water from storm sewers slowly made its way down
Grand Forks streets.
The headline of the April 21 Grand Forks Herald
the
summed up the gloomy scenario:
“Come Hell and High Water.” Region
EGF: ‘EVERYBODY GOT FLOODED’
Across the river in East Grand Forks, Lynn Stauss was
less than a year into office when he faced what would
Grow.
be the defining event of his 20-year mayoral career. The
decision to evacuate the entire city was an easy one to
make, Stauss, 71, said.
“I’d been out to all the areas, and we were so afraid of
losing life versus having somebody leave their home, and
we were going to make sure that they were protected,”
Stauss said. “And we were very fortunate in both
communities. We didn’t really lose anybody because of
the flood at that particular time.
“I’m sure we lost some people (after the flood) who
were just distressed and didn’t know what to do next.
And our biggest thing was, ‘What can we do to help
them out?’”
On that front, Stauss, who retired in January after
deciding not to seek re-election in 2016, worked hard to
make sure East Grand Forks didn’t get lost in the shuffle
of publicity that surrounded Grand Forks after the flood
001552703r1
and fire. www.grandforks.org
17
The U.S. Coast Guard patrols the Lincoln Drive area of Grand
Forks on April 19. By 2 p.m. that day, all of Grand Forks east of
Columbia Road was under a mandatory evacuation order.
John Stennes/Grand Forks Herald
I’d say ‘Keep the faith,’ and I meant faith in God and faith in
to come through bigger, better and stronger. Midwest people …
18
yourself and faith in those around you because we were going
man, they showed more strength than I’ve ever seen.
— Former Grand Forks Mayor Pat Owens
19
Grand Forks Mayor Pat Owens shows
the strain of trying to manage her city.
Owens was nicknamed "the little spitfire"
for her resilience during the flood.
John Doman/St. Paul Pioneer Press
20
Cultivating support
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Former Grand Forks Mayor Pat Owens stands near a portrait of

herself from 1997 in her Summer Glen home near Ocala, Fla.
Owens ordered the evacuation of 50,000 Grand Forks residents.
Alan Youngblood/Alan Youngblood Images
Describing the disaster, Stauss says he frequently

referred to the initials of Grand Forks as standing for
“Got Flooded.”
The initials of East Grand Forks: “Everybody Got © 2017 J.R. Simplot Company.
Flooded.”
001549114r1
“I remember Mayor Owens saying to me, ‘You know,
I don’t know how East Grand Forks is ever going to
come back,’ and that’s because we were totally flooded
— everything,” Stauss said. “The two of us got along so
good, and she made sure that I went wherever Grand
Forks went.”
We Survived
That relationship between the two cities continued
after Mike Brown became Grand Forks’ mayor after 001549109r1
upsetting Owens in the 2000 mayoral race.
Devastation...
Color information:
“He’s such an easy, good guy to work with — always 4C ad
looking to improve Grand Forks and East Grand Forks
and not just Grand Forks,” Stauss said.
TRICKLING HOME
Water levels in April 1997 were slow to recede and
lingered near 54 feet for several days, but the first
residents began trickling back to their homes on
Thursday, April 24. Two days earlier, President Bill
Clinton addressed about 3,000 people — many of them
flood evacuees with no place else to go — in a Grand
Forks Air Force Base hangar.
The president’s words that April day brought hope at a
time when people really needed it.
“Be good to yourself,” Clinton was quoted in a Herald
story about the appearance. “You don’t have to be
ashamed if you’re heartbroken.” TOGETHER!
Spirit and faith, he said, would help the cities rebuild.
“Water cannot wash that away, fire cannot burn that
away and a blizzard cannot freeze that away,” Clinton North Dakota
001549109r1
said. 151 South 4th Street,

21
A fire-bombing plane, usually used to fight forest fires, drops fire retardant on the
downtown blaze. The electrical fire in the Security Building, one of the oldest office
buildings in Grand Forks, was reported about 4:15 p.m. and still was burning 22 hours later.
Then came the sirens, the eerie blaring filling residents

with horror as they faced the inevitable reality:
They’d fought the good fight,

but it wasn’t enough.
22
I was tired, and my brain went from one side to the
other. I thought, ‘If I make a decision to evacuate
and we don’t have a flood, they’ll impeach me.’ But
I thought, we have to save lives at all costs, so I
signed the form to start evacuating the city.
— Former Grand Forks Mayor Pat Owens
23
It was about that same time, Owens Kroc’s answer, which involved a pair of
recalled, that she received a message jeans the mayor had bought a few days
to call Maureen O’Connor, a former San earlier, provided an ego boost, Owens
Diego mayor. recalls.
“I thought, ‘This sounds fishy,’ but I “I had stopped at Sam’s Club because There is no place
looked at my husband and said ‘Hmm, I I was so darn dirty, and my jeans were all
in the world that
think Maureen O’Connor was the mayor mud,” Owens said. “I picked up a pair of
there.’ I asked my husband what he black jeans and thought I should try them is as generous as
thought, and he said call -- it can’t hurt.” on but I didn’t have time, so I just picked the people in the
The call was legit, and O’Connor told them up and ran.” United States. The
Owens an anonymous donor had seen Later that day, Kroc was watching the
coverage of the flood and wanted to give news when she saw Owens on TV. generosity of our
$15 million to flood-stricken residents. “She said, ‘I saw this little fox on TV in nation, our people
That donor came to be known as The her tight black jeans,’” Owens said. “And is remarkable and
Angel, later revealed as Joan Kroc, wife she said right then and there, I’m going
to help that girl. I just laughed, and I said
something we’ll
of the late Ray Kroc, the former CEO who
turned McDonald’s into a fast-food empire. that’s amazing. never forget.
Kroc, who was born in West St. Paul, “And yeah, they were tight. It tickled me
Minn., and lived in San Diego, visited because she said that. And that’s how we
Grand Forks to see the damage for herself. got $15 million.” — Former East Grand
“Lynn (Stauss) and I got together and The Angel’s generosity meant $2,000 Forks Mayor Lynn Stauss
called her The Angel, and she went down for flooded households on both sides of
through Lincoln Drive and all that, and the river that requested the money. The
she said, ‘This is absolutely devastating,’” Ronald McDonald House Foundation
Owens said. added another $5 million.
During The Angel’s low-profile visit, East Grand Forks eventually named a Mike Sande, a veteran firefighter who
fought the downtown blaze in waist-
Owens said she asked Kroc why she was street, Joan Kroc Parkway, in The Angel’s deep floodwater, said he didn’t sleep for
donating the money. honor. four or five days during the disaster.
24
SEAMLESS SIDING &
HOME IMPROVEMENT CENTER
e As
We Wer
o Help
Happy T s
in 1997 A y!
Toda
We Are
The first flight of 250 volunteers from the Twin Cities arrives May 10 at
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transportation for this group as well as another group of 250 volunteers. IMPROVEMENT
CENTER
We also install…
• Renewal by Andersen
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they could get their house fixed up. Or it bought gas for • Seamless Gutters
them or it bought food,” Stauss said. “It did so much, and
• Kitchen Cabinet Refacing
it was the first money to come because you didn’t have
• Kitchen Cabinet &
001549106r1
all the red tape of the government. It came direct. Countertops
“And at that particular time, she felt like our Angel.” • Azek Decking
Also giving money was comedian and late-night
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TV host Jay Leno, who donated $10,000 to aid area
residents, Owens said. Ross Perot, the Texas billionaire 775-0980 / 800-618-0980 • web site - www.anlsiding.com
who ran as an Independent for president in 1992, also
called Owens asking if there was anything he could do
Helping you protect
to help.
“He called during one of the busiest times right at the
beginning,” Owens said. “I wish I had known better, but I
Helping
what matters you protect most
said we appreciate whatever you can do. We had a lot of
calls like that from people.”
what matters most
As people returned to their flooded homes, some PrefName, Designations
damaged beyond repair, residents of the two cities
began cleaning up and putting their lives back together. Helping
We offer a variety
you
of insurance
Title
PrefName
financial solutions
Titleto make
Address1,
protect
products and
, Designations
sure you’re
Address2
Mountains of flood debris resembling a garage sale from
hell soon lined the berms for miles, and FEMA trailers,
temporary homes donated by the Federal Emergency
what matters
covered for todayAddress1, Address2most
and
City,
Phone
City,
tomorrow.
State Zip
State Zip
Management Agency, became part of the vernacular, as Phone
did words such as “recovery” and “closure.” Diana
PrefNameHoverson
countryfinancial.com/rep.name
, Designations
Soul Asylum, a popular Twin Cities band at the time, Title
1397 Library Circle
rep.name@countryfinancial.com
performed in June at a prom for Grand Forks students at countryfinancial.com/rep.name
Address1, Address2
Grand Forks Air Force Base. Grand Forks, ND
City, State Zip
(701)
Phone 775-5331
RELIEF IN MANY FORMS
Owens and Stauss made numerous trips to
Washington, D.C., and to their respective state capitals to COUNTRYFinancial.com/diana.hoverson
countryfinancial.com/rep.name
seek flood relief legislation. Nine months after the flood, diana.hoverson@COUNTRYFinancial.com
hundreds of millions of dollars in federal flood relief Auto, Home, and Commercial policies issued by COUNTRY Mutual Insurance
had flowed into North Dakota and Minnesota, Herald Company®, COUNTRY Casualty Insurance Company®, or COUNTRY Preferred
Insurance
Auto, Home, andCompany®, Bloomington,
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and COUNTRY
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Clinton and House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a Assurance
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insurance issuedissued
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byCOUNTRY
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and COUNTRY Bloomington,
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YP-RepCode-Date
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YP-RepCode-Date
happened because today, you’d never receive the kind of Auto, Home, and Commercial policies issued by COUNTRY Mutual Insurance
Company®, COUNTRY Casualty Insurance Company®, or COUNTRY Preferred
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YP-RepCode-Date
TIMELINE
WHEN WINTER
WOULDN’T LEAVE
NOVEMBER MARCH
16-17: Blizzard Andy dumps 12 inches of 1: Grand Forks Red River defeats Grand
snow, leaving two dead in a car crash Forks Central 2-1 for its second-
near Greenbush, Minn. straight state high school hockey title.
DECEMBER 4: Blizzard Gust adds to the record
3: Grand Forks voters approve the Aurora snowfall, causing the roof of the East
events center with 53 percent of vote. Grand Forks Civic Center to sag.
16-18: Blizzard Betty arrives five days 22: At home, UND women’s basketball
before winter officially starts. team wins the school’s first NCAA
20: Blizzard Christopher, the second Division II title by defeating Southern
blizzard in a week, drops 4.2 inches of Indiana 94-78.
snow. 28: The National Weather Service sticks to
25: Temperatures plunge to 40 below at its forecast of 47.5 feet.
Flag Island on Lake of the Woods, 29: UND wins its sixth NCAA Division I
setting a record for Minnesota’s hockey championship by defeating
coldest Christmas. Boston University 6-4 in Milwaukee.
30: Four people die when a tracked van APRIL
plunges through Lake of the Woods. 3: Sandbagging and dike-building begin
31: Thousands participate in the third in Greater Grand Forks.
annual First Night celebration in 4: Grand Forks Emergency Manager Jim
downtown Grand Forks. Campbell issues an urgent call for
JANUARY sandbag volunteers to raise dikes 3 to
4: The body of 26-year-old UND student 7 feet at Riverside Park.
Francis Delabreau, missing since the 4: Blizzard Hannah arrives with freezing
Nov. 17 blizzard, is found frozen in an rain that will leave 300,000 Red River
abandoned van. Valley residents without power.
9-11: Blizzard Doris takes four lives as 4: Red River reaches 28-foot flood stage.
wind chills plummet to 80 below. 5: Wind and ice knock down KXJB-TV’s
11: The National Guard is activated to clear 2,060-foot transmitter near Galesburg,
snow-blocked roadways. N.D.
12: President Clinton declares the region a 5: At Breckenridge, Minn., sandbagging
disaster area, clearing money for storm goes on despite the blizzard.
costs. Floodwaters force hundreds from the
14-16: Blizzard Elmo arrives, prompting city.
Minnesota Gov. Arne Carlson to close 5: The National Weather Service sticks
all Minnesota schools. to its 49-foot crest prediction despite
15: The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers precipitation from Blizzard Hannah.
unveils $40 million ring levee proposal 7: The Red River rises to 38.27 feet.
that would protect Grand Forks from a National Weather Service still says 49
100-year flood. feet.
22-23: Blizzard No. 6 is Franzi. 7: For the second time this year, President
FEBRUARY Clinton declares North Dakota a
2: A Northwest Airlines DC-9 skids disaster area.
off an icy runway at Grand Forks 7: Water from the Wild Rice and Marsh
International Airport. rivers forces 1,000 of 1,700 Ada, Minn.,
14: The National Weather Service’s first residents to evacuate.
outlook on Grand Forks flooding says 8: North Dakota Gov. Ed Schafer activates
the river may rise higher than 1979’s the National Guard to help with flood-
crest of 48.8 feet. fighting efforts and blizzard recovery.
28: The National Weather Service 10: East Grand Forks Flood Director
gives flood forecast of 47.5 to 49 feet at Gary Sanders issues a call for 1,000
Grand Forks. sandbaggers.
26
10: FEMA Director James Lee Witt tours 22: At least 1,500 Pembina and Drayton,
Ada, where floodwaters rushed in, then N.D., residents leave homes as dikes
froze. crack.
11: The National Weather Service predicts 22: Mayville (N.D.) State University
the Red River will crest during the cancels classes.
week of April 20-27. 23: UND President Kendall Baker offers
11: Vice President Al Gore visits Fargo and facilities to residents and businesses.
Breckenridge, offering words of hope. 23: Red River begins to recede.
11: Dike-walking begins in East Grand 23: American Red Cross President
Forks. Elizabeth Dole tours flood-stricken
14: Red River in Fargo reaches 37.4 feet, area with North Dakota first lady
surpassing the previous record of 37.3 Nancy Jones Schafer and Grand Forks
feet in 1969. Mayor Pat Owens.
15: The Point Bridge closes in East Grand 24: Some Grand Forks residents are
Forks. allowed to visit their homes for a few
15: East Grand Forks Mayor Lynn Stauss hours.
says 300 to 400 Sherlock Park and 24: Volunteers work to save Pembina from
Griggs Park residents may have to floodwaters.
evacuate by nightfall. The city issues 25: House Speaker Newt Gingrich visits
guidelines for evacuation. the region.
15: Due to ice jams and overland flooding, 26: The first portion of East Grand Forks
Warren, Minn., suffers its third flood in reopens to residents. Portions of
less than a year. Grand Forks continue to open.
16: The Flood of 1997 officially becomes 27: A Northwest Airlines 747 arrives in
the Flood of the Century as the river Grand Forks with 200,000 pounds of
rises above 1979’s 48.88 feet. flood-relief goods.
16: The National Weather Service changes 27: Interstate 29 reopens between Grand
its crest prediction to 50.5 feet. Forks and Fargo, eliminating a one-
16: Grand Forks officials warn residents of hour detour through Casselton, N.D.
possible evacuations. 28: The Kennedy Bridge reopens after 10
16: Walsh County officials urge the days, uniting Grand Forks and East
evacuation of homes and farmsteads Grand Forks.
east of Interstate 29 and west of the 28: The Grand Forks City Council meets
Red River north of Grand Forks. for the first time since the disaster.
17: Red stands at 50.96 feet. National 29: An anonymous woman, “The
Weather Service raises prediction Angel” pledges to give $2,000 to every
again to 51.5 feet. household hurt by floodwaters.
17: About 1 p.m., hundreds of Lincoln Drive MAY
residents evacuate after reports that 1: FEMA announces it will bring 100 fully
a nearby dike had broken. The dike is equipped trailers for evacuees.
repaired. 2: Nondrinkable water is restored in Grand
17: East Grand Forks Mayor Lynn Stauss’ Forks.
battle cry of “2 feet in two days” urges 2: United Hospital reopens its emergency
residents to raise dikes to meet rising room.
crest predictions. 2: The Red River crests at Winnipeg,
17: Red River breaks through clay dike leaving the town virtually unscathed.
south of Bygland, filling a coulee that 3: UND students return to campus to clear
passes through East Grand Forks. out their dorm rooms.
21: Red River crests at 54.11 feet. 3: Experts say this wasn’t a 500-year
21: Demolition of burnt-out buildings flood, but the next flood could be
begins. worse, and it could come soon.
21: Classes are canceled for the rest of the 4: North Dakota’s congressional
year in Grand Forks and East Grand delegation requests an explanation
Forks schools. from the National Weather Service
21: Emergency Animal Rescue Services and the Army Corps of Engineers on
The flooded Red River still stands as high as sets out in search of pets left behind. why they didn’t share information that
the street signs on April 26 in the Sherlock
Park neighborhood of East Grand Forks. 22: President Clinton tours devastated might have offered a more accurate
John Stennes/Grand Forks Herald area via helicopter. flood forecast.
27
TIMELINE
4: State fire investigators begin probing

the cause of the downtown fire that
destroyed 11 buildings.
5: Mayor Owens issues order banning
Paul Fredrickson steps through the door of a
scavengers from picking through friend's house in the Sherlock Park neighborhood
debris on the berms. in East Grand Forks on May 11. Another family
friend used mud to paint the greeting.
8: A second “angel” gives $5 million for Chuck Kimmerle/Grand Forks Herald
the people of Greater Grand Forks.
9: East Grand Forks gets potable water for
22: Congress recesses for Memorial Day
the first time in three weeks.
without finishing work on a disaster
9: Army Corps of Engineers releases a
relief bill.
map pushing the proposed dike line
24: A National Weather Service team
farther back than one drawn by city arrives in North Dakota to investigate
engineers. the flood forecasts.
11: The Point Bridge reopens. 29: American Red Cross begins to pull out
12: Drinkable tap water is restored to of Grand Forks.
Grand Forks.
JUNE
14: FEMA Director James Lee Witt tours 9: The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
area to assess flood damage. proposes three flood-protection plans
15: Mayor Owens meets with first lady for Greater Grand Forks.
Hillary Clinton in Washington, D.C. 9: President Clinton vetoes disaster-aid
18: The Herald reports that McDonald’s bill because it contains provisions not
heiress Joan Kroc is the “Angel” who related to disasters.
donated $2,000 to each head of 12: President Clinton signs revised $8.6
household in Greater Grand Forks. billion disaster-aid bill.
THREE TRAGIC DAYS

FRIDAY, APRIL 18 4:30 p.m.: Water in Lincoln Drive area
2:45 a.m.: Red River at 51.42. reaches same level as river, leaving
4:15 a.m.: Boils appear in the Lincoln Park about 300 homes in water, many of
dike. City orders evacuation, including them to the rooftops.
106 residents of Valley Memorial 7:14 p.m.: River reaches 52.62, up 18
Homes-Almonte Living Center. inches in 18 hours.
6 a.m.: City orders evacuation of Riverside 8:08 p.m.: National Weather Service
and Central Park areas. revises crest for 54.0 feet on Saturday.
8 a.m.: Water runs out of north end of 8:20 p.m.: Central Park area fills rapidly.
Lincoln Park Golf Course and down 9:40 p.m.: Emergency Operations Center
Lincoln Drive. at Grand Forks Police Station moves
11:15 a.m.: “It’s one of the major disasters to UND as storm sewer backup runs
of our lifetime,” Grand Forks Mayor Pat down Fifth Street. Within 30 minutes,
Owens tells CNN television. the police station basement is full of
11:35 a.m.: National Weather Service
water.
revises its crest projection to 53 for
10 p.m.: River reaches 52.76; Owens bans
today or Saturday.
sale of alcohol in Grand Forks.
Noon: River at 52.19.
11 p.m.: East Grand Forks dike near
12:15 p.m.: First break in East Grand Forks
Kennedy Bridge fails, cutting the
dikes comes near Folson Park. But
last link between the two cities and
ring dike temporarily saves area.
3:30 p.m.: Dike just south of Murray Bridge flooding Sherlock Park homes.
in East Grand Forks breaks, resulting SATURDAY, APRIL 19
in the flooding of entire Point area. Midnight: Water flows off dike by Murray
4 p.m.: Sirens sound as Point area ordered Bridge, flooding land inside Griggs
evacuated, and Murray Bridge closes. Park in East Grand Forks.
28
To lessen
the impact...
1 a.m.: Water comes over the dike by
Valley Golf Course in East Grand
Forks. By meeting
2:20 a.m.: Herald pressroom and mailroom
employees flee building as sewer
the need...
backup water rushes down the alley
and threatens to overtake downtown.
4 a.m.: With 2 feet of water in the lobby, In a neighborly way.
senior citizens are carried from the
Ryan House.
4 a.m.: Dikes are topped and downtown
East Grand Forks — the city’s last dry
area — is flooded.
5 a.m.: Water is 4 feet deep in downtown
Grand Forks.
6 a.m.: River at 52.89.
7:10 a.m.: Water tops the dike in Riverside
Park.
7:50 a.m.: National Guard begins diking
East Grand Forks Police Department.
8 a.m.: Grand Forks water plant fails.
10 a.m.: City orders evacuation of all areas
in Grand Forks east of Washington
Street.
THANK YOU FOR
11 a.m.: UND President Kendall Baker calls YOUR SUPPORT!
001553271r1
off classes for the semester, two weeks
before final exams are to start.
Noon: About 50 percent of Grand Forks
We
and virtually all of East Grand Forks
are flooded.
1 p.m.: Riverside Park area is filled with
Survived
floodwater.
2 p.m.: Area east of Columbia Road
ordered to evacuate.
4:15 p.m.: Fire reported in Security
Together!
Building, 101 N. Third St.
7 p.m.: Ninety percent of East Grand
Forks’ 8,700 residents have been
evacuated.
7:15 p.m.: Planes begin dropping chemical
retardant on fire.
10 p.m.: About 4,000 East Grand Forks
evacuees have arrived in Crookston.
SUNDAY, APRIL 20
5:30 a.m.: Eleven buildings are either lost
or heavily damaged by the fire.
7 a.m.: Red River at 53.7.
10 a.m.: Grand Forks water supply
exhausted.
11:30 a.m.: Mayor Owens announces
24-hour curfew in mandatory
evacuation zones. 001549108r1
2 p.m.: A helicopter dumps water on the

Heaps of flood-soaked
debris line Cherry
smoldering downtown fire.
7 p.m.: United Hospital evacuates the last
BOB’S OIL CO.
Street in Grand Forks. of its patients. 524 Gateway Dr,
The city estimated it 8 p.m.: 75 percent of Grand Forks’ Grand Forks, ND 58203
would take at least six
weeks to collect it all. residents are evacuated. (701) 775-7571
Herald file photo 9 p.m.: Red River at 53.99.
29
Sally and Jake Jacobson cover up with a quilt they made in 1997 from scraps left over from the first
set of quilts Sally and her 4-H group gave to the Community Violence and Intervention Center.
money we were able to get between at Tufte Manor, a Grand Forks assisted- In August 1997, Jacobson met a 4-H
Minnesota and North Dakota, between living facility, became an almost weekly leader from the club, the Wayne Crusaders
Grand Forks and East Grand Forks,” event, and the club had completed 44 of Allenton, Wis., in Moorhead to receive
Stauss said. “And that’s what really quilts and presented them to the CVIC in the quilts. The club also donated boxes of
enabled us to move ahead and really December 1996. school supplies.
change the whole communities.” A barrage of blizzards that winter forced “I cried because, you know, that they
As examples, Stauss cites the addition several delays in the quilting project. would do something like that,” Jacobson
of Cabela’s and four new schools in Then the flood hit. said. “What they did for us was wonderful.”
East Grand Forks, a middle school, two “All the supplies were in our basement, The gesture was just one small example
elementary schools and Sacred Heart. so we lost our basement and everything in of the kindness that flooded Grand Forks
“In a city of under 10,000, that is it,” Jacobson said. “4-H clubs were calling and East Grand Forks. People from across
absolutely incredible,” he said. “Cabela’s from all over the country wanting to know the country donated time, supplies and
was very big for us. It helped to establish if there was anything they could do to labor.
the downtown business area, retail area, That kindness wasn’t lost on city
help us.
and I think that was a key. Cabela’s is officials.
“And I said I feel terrible because we
a destination stop, and that’s what we “There is no place in the world that is
can’t fulfill this grant. All of our families
needed.” as generous as the people in the United
were affected by the flood, and we were
Relief and kindness also took smaller States,” Stauss said. “The generosity of
all trying to come back, and I knew we
forms. our nation, our people is remarkable and
could never get the rest of those quilts
Sally Jacobson of Grand Forks was a
made because we’d lost all the supplies so something we’ll never forget.”
4-H leader at the time of the flood, and
the club, the 4-H Clovers, had written our money was gone.”
a grant to make 100 quilts for the local Then one day, Jacobson received a JOURNEY COMPLETE
Community Violence and Intervention call from a large 4-H club in eastern On a warm Saturday in March 2012,
Center. Wisconsin, which had gotten her name former President Clinton returned to
“There were national grants being from Kim Jones, who worked at the Grand Grand Forks to address the North Dakota
offered to 4-H clubs and so we wrote the Forks County extension office at the time. state Democratic-NPL convention.
grant and got $500, and then there was Carol Oelhaufen, the Wisconsin 4-H He also spoke at an event near the
another $100 that came in and we got leader, said she would talk with her club flood obelisk along the banks of the Red
4-H families to contribute some supplies,” about replacing the quilts, Jacobson River, and Owens made a trip from Florida
Jacobson said. recalled. to join Mayors Stauss and Brown for the
Jacobson said the club spent the money “She called me back a short time later occasion.
to buy batting, fabric and other supplies and said, ‘We have your quilts, we fulfilled The Red River that day showed no signs
when it went on sale. Quilting gatherings your grant,’” Jacobson said. of flooding, an extensive flood protection
30
Thousands gather in March 2012 to hear former President Bill Clinton speak at the flood obelisk in
downtown Grand Forks. It was Clinton’s first trip back to Grand Forks since the Flood of 1997.
system by then had been in place for

several years and the disaster that had
struck in April 1997 seemed almost as
difficult to comprehend as the recovery
that followed.
Green space, parks and thriving
downtowns had arisen in the flood’s wake,
mostly because of the disaster.
The road to recovery was long and
difficult, but the sight that greeted the
former president that warm March day
told the story: The journey was complete.
“If you look around the world, what
works on a daily basis is what worked
here after the flood — when people work
together, when they cooperate, when
they put aside rhetoric and decide they’re
going to do one specific thing,” Clinton
said in a Herald story.
Owens said she looks back on that day
with pride.
“I looked around and I thought, ‘My,
Former President Bill Clinton is cheered after his speech in downtown Grand Forks in March 2012. Former
every effort that everybody put forth, it Grand Forks Mayor Pat Owens and other city officials from the Flood of 1997 joined Clinton on stage.
really paid off,’” Owens said. “I said, I lived Eric Hylden/Grand Forks Herald
there all my life, and I think it’s come back
bigger, better and stronger like we said it
would.” from the Flood of 1997, along with the “I remember standing up -- I’d say this
The Red River has flooded several hard work of residents, volunteers and daily to everybody -- I’d say ‘Keep the
times since 1997, but in Grand Forks and politicians who played a role in rebuilding, faith,’ and I meant faith in God and faith
East Grand Forks, the onset of high water is apparent everywhere you look. in yourself and faith in those around you
hasn’t resulted in frayed nerves or people Twenty years after the worst disaster because we were going to come through
scrambling to fill sandbags. The cities in the history of Grand Forks and East bigger, better and stronger,” Owens said.
are protected to a river level of about 63 Grand Forks, that remains a remarkable “Midwest people … man, they showed
feet, and the positive things that resulted accomplishment. more strength than I’ve ever seen.”
31
GOING STRONG
Large crowds gather

downtown for the Grand
Cities Art Fest.
Eric Hylden
Grand Forks Herald
Sherwin Schoppert,
Renner, S.D., talks with
girlfriend Mary Haugstad,
Grand Forks, in Town
Square before the start of
the Red River International
Bike Tour. Town Square,
a popular gathering
place, was the result of a
reimagined downtown.
Jackie Lorentz
Grand Forks Herald
Alive again with nightlife, downtown
Grand Forks is hopping as UND fans
take to the streets April 9, 2016,
after the men's hockey team defeats
Quinnipiac to win the national title.
Jesse Trelstad/Grand Forks Herald
32
001550621r1
One Great Team.

Two Great Locations.
Tim Carpenter (left), 8, and his brother, Zach, 6,
enjoy a trip down the Greenway hillside before the We care, you’ll see...
cardboard sled races at the Frosty Bobber Winter
Carnival in January 2017 in East Grand Forks.
Lauren Madsen walks her English mastiff, Tiger, in the

summer of 2016 along the Greenway and floodwall in Grand
Forks. The bicycle/walking trail winds for miles along the Red
River in both Grand Forks and East Grand Forks.
Optometrists:
Dr. Bruce Storhaug, Dr. Destin Coles, Dr. Steven Gander
Opticare - Forks Vision Clinic Opticare - Crookston Vision Associates

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33
LINCOLN DRIVE
AND THE
WATER CAME
RUSHING IN
BY SAM EASTER
GRAND FORKS HERALD
“It gets a little harder every year to find them,” Bob

Alderson says, bundled against the cold and crunching
across the snow with his wife, Peg. The two peer
through the branches of a mature pine tree in Grand
Forks’ Lincoln Drive Park, where they once hung strings
of Christmas lights before the Flood of 1997.
Back then, the tree was theirs, the snow-covered
ground they stand on, their yard.
But the flood changed that, as it did for many other
families forced out by the rushing floodwaters that
destroyed the longtime Lincoln Drive neighborhood,
where the modern-day park now stands.
Once a charming and close-knit neighborhood to raise
children -- as the Aldersons did -- the entire section of
the city is now houseless, open and green. A frisbee golf
course runs through much of the area, as does a dog
park. A playground sits near the floodwall on the park’s
west side.
“There’s some of the lights,” Bob says at last, spotting
a narrow string of the family’s decorations from two
decades ago. They dangled near the tree’s lowest
branches, roughly at head height. “Then they go on up.”
Throughout the park, there are haunting mementos of
a busy neighborhood with an elementary school at its
core. Trees still march in straight lines alongside broad
avenues of grass -- reminders of where the streets
used to run. As Bob Alderson recalls his own ghosts,
it’s easy to watch his family’s home materialize before
his eyes. He remembers his son riding a Big Wheel in
the driveway, and later, carrying a bag out the door to
hockey practice.
That’s all gone now, though, and to hear many tell it,
the pain of the loss has faded, too. Alderson said the city
has “done a wonderful job” with the park. Wes Rogers
feels the same. He owned a home for 17 years in the
neighborhood and moved just a stone’s throw south of
the area before the flood struck.
34
About 8 feet of water covers the Lincoln Drive
area on April 18, 1997. Homes here were
evacuated hours before the dikes gave way.
Jackie Lorentz/Grand Forks Herald
35
A home is demolished in March 1998
in the Lincoln Drive neighborhood.
A.B. Dickie rests on his front

steps at 127 Lincoln Dr. as he and
friends salvage what’s left of his
belongings May 21, 1997.
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Rogers moved into a home at 505 Plum Ave. in the late
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But the floodwaters were still months away in January
1997. Back then, the Rogerses, the Aldersons and others
had an eye on the brutal winter that was piling up
snow throughout the Red River Valley. Kelly Nelson --
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37
LINCOLN DRIVE
AND THE WATER CAME RUSHING IN
“I think it was when we lost power for so long that all

of the water in the glasses was frozen,” Nelson said. “I
don’t get real worked up over any of this, or the weather.
You just knew you were going for a long time without
heat, but again, what we ended up doing is one of our
neighbors had a fireplace. I just tied up the kids with
scarves, and we went to their place.”
Bob Alderson said the winter was so long -- and the
snow so deep -- that he and Peg bought flood insurance
for the first time.
“I remember we talked to our elderly neighbors and
tried to get them to, but none of them did,” he said. “I
think one of them got kind of angry at me, telling me that
nothing is going to come through that dike.”
HE WAS WRONG
But the flood swept through the neighborhood and left
it devastated as residents fled ahead of the floodwaters
throughout the city. The Aldersons remember going to
Lakota, then to Minot and elsewhere for shelter.
“We sat in Minot and watched the fires downtown
rage on national TV,” Bob Alderson said. When the
cameras showed their Lincoln neighborhood, all they
could see were rooftops.
“Just — (we felt) great sadness, because we knew our
home was gone where we had raised our family.”
The first time either of the Aldersons saw their home
again was three to four weeks later on a sunny spring
day. The door had to be pried open because it was
swollen from the floodwaters, Bob recalled.
Inside, the home they’d lived in since the 1970s was a
mess. Bob remembers items that had been downstairs
before the flood had floated upstairs. The power of the
water was incredible, he said.
“All the ceilings were pitch-black -- the water was
just so filthy,” he said. “The mattress on our bed had
floated up and had just gotten stuck on the ceiling from
the water pressure. And you could look up, and our
ceiling was completely black except for the outline of our
mattress, and it was completely white.”
Rogers’ thoughts drift back to the elderly residents he
remembers making up much of the neighborhood.
“That’s what hurt the most, I think, what was the
toughest part of the whole flood, when I heard that
neighborhood went, was because of the people,” he said.
“Younger people are more flexible, they can move on.
But in so many ways, when you reach an elderly point in
your life, starting over doesn’t really work for you.”
NO CHOICE
Starting over was all the city had, though. City Council
member Ken Vein was the city engineer during the flood,
and he recalled that the Lincoln neighborhood was the
epicenter of the damage that ravaged the city. Hundreds
of homes were affected by the rising river and, later, by
the construction of the new flood protection system.
38
Peg and Bob Alderson spot a string of Christmas
lights still hanging in an evergreen tree in what
used to be their backyard in Lincoln Drive Park.
Twenty years after the flood, Bob and Peg

Alderson study aerial photographs of the Lincoln
Drive neighborhood. The Aldersons lost their
home there and later moved to Bob's boyhood
home on Almonte Avenue in Grand Forks.
Bob and Peg Alderson

seem to share a
consensus that
the Lincoln Drive
neighborhood’s loss was
a tragedy, but that the
park’s replacement has
gone a long way toward
making up for it
— if not completely
erasing the loss.
39
Several residents along Polk Street in the
Lincoln Drive area displayed the American
flag in May 1997. The homes would be lost
to make room for a new dike system.
Candace Barbot/Miami Herald
42
Kelly Straub tries to regain her balance as she
walks across furniture strewn around the living
room of her Lincoln Park home in 1997.
That’s what hurt the most, I think, what was the toughest
part of the whole flood, when I heard that neighborhood
went, was because of the people. Younger people are
more flexible, they can move on. But in so many ways,
when you reach an elderly point in your life, starting
over doesn’t really work for you.
— Wes Rogers
43
Kelly Nelson (formerly Kelly
Straub) and her children were
the last residents of Lincoln Park.
A vocal critic of how the city
handled flood buyouts, she says
she has a happy home today.
Wearing a swimsuit her

children gave her as an early
Mother’s Day present, Kelly
Straub (center) cleans “all the
possessions we have left”
May 10, 1997. Her children,
Molly, 13, Emily, 11, and
Andrew, 8, help her wash
glass and silverware.
Beau Cabell
Macon Telegraph
44
Army Corps of Engineers workers
watch as the first of hundreds of flood-
damaged homes in Grand Forks is
demolished July 3, 1997. The rushing
floodwaters knocked the house at 80
Lincoln Drive off its foundation.
Chuck Kimmerle, Grand Forks Herald
Bishop Michael Cole blows his

trumpet, a ram’s horn, May 15
1997, to celebrate the survival of
his Gospel Outreach Ministries
Church on Belmont Road.
45
LINCOLN DRIVE
AND THE WATER CAME RUSHING IN
“It was in the Lincoln Drive area, where the flood wall
is, where the water first started coming over the levee
system and started inundating (the city),” Vein said.
Nelson found herself pitted against local leaders after
waters receded. In the years after the flood, she pushed
back against a local buyout effort for her home, insisting
on invoking federal relocation and natural disaster
policies. She said she received tens of thousands of
dollars more in local and federal dollars than she might
have otherwise received, and she’s still a vocal critic of
the way the city handled the flood’s aftermath.
It was a process fraught with emotion for many
people. Peg Alderson used to visit her home in the days
after the flood had stolen it; one day, she stumbled upon
the scene as a machine was about to destroy it. The
operator told her that demolishing people’s homes was
the worst job he’d ever had.
Vein defended the city’s work, though.
“I do say this much, especially if I can look back now.
People were in some very stressful times, and we were
in uncharted territory. There was no book on how to
do this,” he said. “People will say, including me, that
the recovery we did was (exemplary) -- as many other
flooded areas came to Grand Forks to see how we did
after the fact.”
Meanwhile, the word “Greenway” had become part
of the city’s lexicon, slowly unfolding from an imagined
“interstate park” into what spans the Grand Forks-East
Grand Forks border today -- a long, winding park that
follows the Red River for miles and is perhaps the crown
jewel for the Grand Cities.
Lincoln Drive Park, in turn, is perhaps its most vibrant
area. On a warm day, you might see boaters using the
launch, frisbees floating through the disc golf course or
children on the swing sets not too far away.
The Aldersons agree the loss of the neighborhood
certainly was tragic but say the park’s replacement
has gone a long way toward making up for it -- if not
completely erasing the loss.
And Nelson has moved forward, too. It’s just mud and
water, she says as she tucks her feet close in a comfy
living room chair. Her living room is decorated with
collectibles — a stuffed mouse head hangs out of the
way on the wall, and antique typewriters sit on stands
here and there. It’s neat, tidy and a little esoteric -- a
well-decorated room with light flowing through a broad
front window.
For Nelson, it’s a happy home on 18th Avenue South.
She has a “fabulous” yard, and her grandchildren are all
within a five-block radius. It’s long past the time to move
on, she says.
“To be honest with you, I don’t go to the park,” she
says. “I have everything I want right here.”
Easter is a local government reporter for the Grand Forks Herald. Reach
him with tips, comments or story ideas at (701) 780-1102. Follow him
on Twitter @SamKWEaster.
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mix, at the Lincoln Park dog park in
Grand Forks, N.D. on August 8, 2016.
Meg Oliphant/Grand Forks Herald
(Left to right): Susan Kraft, Alice

Senechal, Sarah Streed, and Cathi
Feeley partake in yoga on the Greenway
Saturday morning in Grand Forks.
Meg Oliphant/Grand Forks Herald
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47
Workers with Construction Engineers Ltd. greet students and
their parents in August 1998 as they enter the new Phoenix
Elementary School in Grand Forks. The workers were handing
out pencils to Katie Rike and her daughter, Danielle. Danielle
was starting the sixth grade at Phoenix. The school replaced
Lincoln and Belmont elementary schools.
Fifth-grader Christian Levitt gets a boost from his

classmates as he writes his name on one of the old
Belmont Elementary School buildings in October
1997. Students and teachers said goodbye to their
old school in a farewell ceremony and chalked
their names and messages on the wall.
48
Proud to
still be here
20 years
later
49
RIVERSIDE PARK
NEW LIFE
IN AN OLD
NEIGHBORHOOD
BY PAMELA KNUDSON
GRAND FORKS HERALD
For residents of Grand Forks’ Riverside Park

neighborhood, fighting the rising waters of the Red River
of the North long had been a springtime ritual — one
they expected, prepared for and won.
But in the spring of 1997, the annual battle ended
differently.
The close-knit northside neighborhood, well-known
for its mature tree-lined streets and the distinctive
architecture of its older homes, dates to the early 1900s.
Living in Riverside “is like going back to the ’50s,” said
Jim Murphy, who has lived with his wife, Robin, on Lewis
Boulevard since 1985.
It’s a safe neighborhood where people know and
care about each other, where they pull together for the
common good, he said.
As the river creeped higher in April 1997, the familiar
flood-fighting tasks that had become second nature —
filling sandbags, patrolling the dikes, moving valuables to
upper floors — were underway in Riverside, Jim Murphy
said.
His family and others were determined to protect the
area from flooding.
“We were still under the impression it wouldn’t be that
bad,” he said.
They kept up the vigil on the dikes until a police officer
came to their door to tell them they had to evacuate.
“He said, basically, you have no choice,” Jim Murphy
recalled.
So, he and Robin grabbed what they could and spent
most of the next two weeks at a relative’s home in
Northwood, N.D. They returned to find several inches of
water on the main floor of their two-story home.
The house next door told a different story.
“Our neighbor’s house didn’t have water on the main
floor,” Jim Murphy said. “(Water levels) just depended on
the elevation of the house.”
50
Jeff Hjelseth and other neighbors of Sally Thompson
(now MacDowell) sandbag her property April 18 in
the Riverside Park neighborhood in Grand Forks.
Floodwaters overtook the dike and ran through the
first floor of the home. Diane Knauf later purchased
the Victorian home in 2000 and restored it.
51
The Murphys lost much of the family’s “When the house was moved, we Longtime Riverside residents Robin and Jim Murphy
moved their historic Prairie-style home from near the
treasured book collection that had been walked beside it,” Robin Murphy recalled. Kennedy Bridge to the north end of Lewis Boulevard
housed in their basement, but “ours was Positioning it at a higher elevation after the flood. The home, built in 1922, once was home
not so great a loss compared to what meant “we wouldn’t have to fill the to Grand Forks’ first mayor, Henry O’Keefe.
others lost,” he said. “We had good friends basement with pea rock,” Jim Murphy said.
who lost everything.” Al and Marcia Fivizzani, who had lived
It was disheartening to see “very nice at 25 Fenton Ave. since they bought the Robin and Jim Murphy greet their 6-year-old grandson,
homes on Riverside Drive with water up to home in 1978, were also familiar with the Max Gordon, who was visiting for the day. The Murphys
were not ready to give up on their flooded Riverside
the rooftops,” he said. annual flood fight. home. They decided to stay in the neighborhood and
Some of the city’s most historic “We had cleared things out of the moved the house to a man-made hill a few blocks away.
homes were in ruins, but the roots that basement,” he said. Eric Hylden/Grand Forks Herald
anchored the Murphys and others to the When the flood struck, they went to
neighborhood were not as easily washed Grand Forks Air Force Base and then to a
away. relative’s home in Texas.
“We felt it was home,” Robin Murphy As a member of the UND biology
said. “We raised our boys here, and we faculty, he moved back first and stayed in
weren’t ready to leave it yet.” a campus dorm, which had been vacated
after classes were canceled for the
HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE semester. He lived there about a month
The Murphys had bought the house in until it was safe for the couple to return
1985 from local jeweler George Phelps Jr., home.
who had grown up in the home. They faced a basement full of water but “It was a beautiful home and a beautiful
The only Prairie-style house in were relieved to see the water had not neighborhood — a nice, cohesive
Riverside, it had been built in 1922 and reached the main floor. neighborhood,” he said. “We have grand
once had been home to Grand Forks’ first “Coming home, it was a matter of memories of kids who were there — some
mayor, Henry O’Keefe. seeing what we could do. We were hoping we’ve kept up with over the years.”
Working with city officials after the our first floor wasn’t impacted,” Fivizzani The Fivizzanis sold their Riverside
flood, the Murphys learned their “house said. “Our house was high enough, it was residence in 2009 to live full time at their
would be moved whether we were staying intact.” lake home near Bemidji, but they still
or not,” Robin Murphy said. Al Fivizzani talks today about how he closely follow Grand Forks news.
They decided to stay, Jim Murphy said, and Marcia fell in love with the house “I’ve been delighted to see stories about
and had the house moved in 2004 from its when they first saw it in 1978. people in their childbearing years moving
original location, “three houses from the “There was wood trim all over the place into Riverside,” said Fivizzani, who retired
Kennedy Bridge, almost under the bridge” and cut glass in built-in windows,” he said. from UND in 2006 as professor emeritus
to a new location a couple of blocks north It was “a delight to watch the western of biology.
on Lewis Boulevard. There, it was situated sun” come through the window and “Riverside is a community within a
on a man-made hill meant to better see the glass refract the colors of the community. That’s what we loved about it,”
protect it from flooding. spectrum on the walls. he said.
52
Cars stream over the Kennedy Bridge
after it opens to traffic on April 28,
10 days after flooding closed it. The
bridge was the first link between
Grand Forks and East Grand Forks.
53
RIVERSIDE PARK
NEW LIFE IN AN OLD NEIGHBORHOOD
STRANGE SIGHTS, SOUNDS

Like others who lived through the Flood of 1997,
Jim Murphy remembers clearly the strange sights and
sounds that accompanied the flood fight.
Afterward, “it took a while to get over the sounds of
the sirens,” he said.
Sally MacDowell (then Sally Thompson), who lived
in Riverside in the years leading up to the flood, shares
those indelible memories of the sirens and the sounds of
helicopters hovering overhead.
“Whenever I hear helicopters, I get a funny feeling,”
said MacDowell, who now lives in Maine.
Before the flood, she lived nearly eight years in a
Victorian-style home at 1518 Riverside Drive.
“It just had a wonderful spirit about it. It really was a
treasure,” she said.
Before she bought the 1884 home, it had been owned
and restored by a UND art professor, Stanley Johnson,
who transformed it from a multiunit structure to a single-
family home.
MacDowell recalled the evening the flood battle was
lost.
“I remember that Friday — when everything was going
to pieces — going out and looking up the river and
realizing that something terrible was going to happen,”
she said.
She went back inside and found water “pouring
out through the fuse box, and sparks were going off
everywhere,” she said. She knew she had to leave.
She had moved as much furniture as she could up to
higher floors but was very grateful to Whalen’s, a local
moving company, when they sent a crew and trucks into
the neighborhood to help people save furniture.
“(Mike) Whalen had his workers picking up our
furniture and literally running it to their trucks,” she said.
“Some of those old family pieces were saved because of
those people.”
After the flood, she was unable to move back into the
house because of its condition.
“It was beyond my capability to restore it,” she said.
She accepted a buyout offer from the city of Grand
Forks and moved to the Chicago area about a year later.
MacDowell is happy the house was moved to a safer
spot nearby and preserved, she said. “I’m so glad the
house had another chapter. It had such an interesting
history.
“I’m glad I can look back on (that time) with happiness
for the positive things that came out of it,” she said.
“Some of the negative things are fading. I had some
PTSD (because of the flood). (But) the good that came
out of it has lasted the most.” Three F-16 fighter jet hangars at Grand Forks Air Force Base
are filled with cots to house more than 3,000 evacuees.
Her Victorian home was purchased by Diane Knauf in Eric Hylden/Grand Forks Herald
2000.
Knauf, who has lived in Riverside since 1975,
remembers walking the neighborhood and falling in love
with the house when she was just 17.
She said she jumped at the chance to purchase it even
though the main floor had been covered with floodwater.
54
It was a beautiful home and a beautiful neighborhood — a nice, cohesive neighborhood.
… Riverside is a community within a community. That’s what we loved about it.
— Al Fivizzani
55
The Red River flows freely around the
historic Riverside home of Sally Thompson
(now Sally MacDowell). The city bought
out the house, and it later was purchased
and restored by Diane Knauf.
56
While friends questioned why she would Diane Knauf holds a Joseph Bell DeRemer rendering
of a house, one of two she discovered when tearing
want it, she said, “I didn’t see a dumpy old up the floor of her historic Riverside home. DeRemer,
house. I saw exactly what I was going to considered one of the finest architects in North Dakota,
do with the house.” lived with his family in this Belmont Road home.
Knauf had to write a proposal for the
right to buy the house, and based on
that proposal, she said she was able to Knauf’s home on Lewis Boulevard, as well as the house
purchase it from the city. in the background, are among three surviving Victorian
homes built in the late 1800s in the Riverside Park
She gutted it and spent nearly two neighborhood. The city moved Knauf’s home from its
years restoring it before moving into the original location on Riverside Drive.
home originally designed by well-known Eric Hylden/Grand Forks Herald
architect Joseph Bell DeRemer.
Under layers of old flooring, she found
some of his architectural renderings and Even when she needed to dash into her The neighborhood is full of life, and the
had them cleaned and framed. Today, they home to fetch items, “the National Guard qualities that first attracted his family are
are displayed in her home. (personnel) always let me in.” even more evident today.
After the flood, residents’ efforts to “There’s such a sense of neighborhood
GENEROSITY OF STRANGERS save the Riverside pool were “extremely now,” he said. “Halloween (for example) is
For many who lived through the crisis, important” to preserving the vibrancy and a sight to behold.”
what stands out most in their minds is the family atmosphere of the Riverside Park In recent years especially, young
generosity of the strangers who came to neighborhood, Jim Murphy said. families with a lot of young children
help. “(The pool) means so much, not just have moved in as the older homeowners
Jim Murphy remembers “all the people I to Riverside but to Grand Forks and the have retired, moved away or relocated to
didn’t know who were chipping in to save history of Grand Forks,” Murphy said. assisted-living facilities.
our town,” he said. “It was amazing to me. “Saving the pool seems the fair thing to One of the Murphys’ sons, Nick, and his
They were literally pitching in, slogging do, the right thing to do.” family bought their own home on Seward
through mud — volunteers from out of Knauf agreed. Avenue, where he and his wife are raising
town who didn’t want to let it go.” their son.
Many residents were impressed by the But looking back at the Flood of 1997,
way the whole community united.
A BIG SPLASH the gratitude also is tinged with sadness.
“Saving the pool was extremely
“The community came together. We “It depends on which side of the dike
were all united,” Knauf said. “We came important,” she said. “It was a beautiful
you look at,” Jim Murphy said. “On the
together, to put others first — you don’t pool. Lots of people used it. One of the
other side of the dike, there’s the sadness
always see that. We worked right up until best things the city did was save that
of loss. We did lose Riverside Drive.
we had to evacuate.” pool.” “On this side, there’s gratitude for the
MacDowell remembered the way she “The Riverside Park neighborhood is neighborhood it’s become.”
and others were treated throughout the so much nicer than prior to the flood,” Jim
ordeal. Murphy said. “It’s better lit, there’s the Knudson is a features reporter at the Herald. Call her
“People were just so good to each other Greenway that’s well-used year-round. It’s at (701) 780-1107; (800) 477-6572, ext.1107; or email
in that experience,” she said. more customer-friendly.” pknudson@gfherald.com.
57
A Humvee rolls through the empty streets
of a powerless downtown Grand Forks. The
downtown area remained without power
for more than a month after the flood.
58
DOWNTOWN
The Security Building, the first downtown building

to go up in flames, stands in ruins on April 20.

BY ANDREW HAFFNER
GRAND FORKS HERALD
Downtown Grand Forks faced a dual away the insides of historic buildings while RIVER OF RUIN
and almost surreal threat from both fire the floodwaters lapped at their feet. “Where we first lost the battle of the
and water during the Flood of 1997. Firefighters hardly could make it to the flood was when the water went over the
The nature of the devastation that hit scene, and those who did could do little
floodwall at Lincoln Drive,” said Grand
the city’s core -- along with the magnitude but evacuate about 40 apartment dwellers
Forks City Council member Ken Vein, “but
of recovery that followed -- lends itself to who had earlier defied emergency orders
mythological comparisons. to leave their homes. With no water then it continued to go overland and into
“It was like a phoenix,” Grand Forks pressure in the hydrant system and no the storm sewers. That’s what really hit
Mayor Mike Brown said, referring to the initial means to bring in fire trucks, the the downtown area.”
legendary bird known for self-immolating firefighters on scene waded in near- At the time of the flood, Vein served in
only to rise anew from the ashes. “It was a freezing floodwaters as the flames raged a combined position as city engineer and
new beginning.” above. director of public works. The role gave him
The Red River first overcame the town’s Planes normally used for fighting forest an up-close view of the river’s destructive
flood defenses on Friday, April 18, in fires had to be routed to the city before power.
the Lincoln Drive area, where the rising nightfall to drop loads of fire retardant
Overland flooding also would have an
waters bested the walls built to contain over the buildings. By Sunday morning, 11
obvious effect by the end, but Vein said
them. By Saturday morning, water sat 4 downtown buildings were lost or heavily
feet deep in the downtown streets. Later damaged by the fires alone. The embers the rush of water first came downtown
that afternoon, an electrical fire broke out still smoldered throughout the day as low- from the overworked storm and sanitation
in the Security Building at 101 North Third flying helicopters dumped about 120,000 sewers — which quickly filled with water
Street. The flames spread quickly, leaping gallons of water on the smoking ruins. and coughed it back onto the city’s
over the impromptu urban canals, eating streets.
59
DOWNTOWN
“Normally, of course, water is grated away,” he said.

“But that system became inundated, so water backed up
and flowed backward.
“We ended up putting a lot of sandbags and things
down manholes in an attempt to stop that water.”
The underground sandbagging worked, to a degree,
but the sewer backups still presented a real challenge to
those fighting the rising water.
An early sign of trouble to come trickled out of sight
from the street level, Vein said, into the basements of
many downtown buildings. Those underground spaces
began to fill with water even when the flood was not yet
high enough to spread above ground.
Vein said they didn’t fare well. Later, when property
owners collected their flood insurance payments for
destroyed or demolished downtown buildings, they were
required to rebuild without basements.
Needless to say, the destruction wreaked both by
flame and flood complicated the cleanup efforts on all
levels. In Brown’s view, credit is due to the businesses
and institutions that hung onto their downtown locations.
“They made the commitment to rebirth downtown,” he
said.
A NEW LIFE
Pete Haga, the city’s community relations officer,
characterized the recovery as “a renewal, in some sense”
of an area that had been in need of some work even
before the natural disaster.
Though downtown was still an entertainment district
in the pre-flood era, Haga said the river shaped the
neighborhood by opening new avenues for public
gatherings.
The Town Square, which hosts open and wide-
reaching events such as concerts and a seasonal
farmers markets, is one such product of loss. The
downtown square was designed after the City Center
Mall was demolished to open up space.
The mall had been built in the 1980s in an attempt
to ride a popular retail trend. The downtown location
was intended to compete with the recently constructed
Columbia Mall and draw shoppers back to the city’s
historic business center.
In the process, the structure enclosed several blocks
of downtown’s Third Street beneath a roof, blocking
the section to motorized traffic. Though innovative at
the time, the downtown mall could not compete with
the flow of shoppers to new retail developments on the
south side of town. Haga said the building also disrupted
downtown traffic patterns — a trait that failed to endear The decorative Elite Brownstones on North Third Street were built on a
the shopping center to locals. downtown block destroyed by the flood and fire. The Herald's clock tower,
also the product of an extensive remodel, stands tall in the background.
“Most people would say one of the best things that Kile Brewer/Grand Forks Herald
happened from the flood was taking the roof down and
reopening Third Street,” he said.
The way Grand Forks architect Jim Galloway sees
it, the flood did the neighborhood a service, albeit an
uncomfortable one.
60
“Downtown before the flood was not a real pretty As Grand Forks city engineer and
director of public works during
place,” said Galloway, a partner in the JLG architectural the Flood of 1997, Ken Vein had
firm. Building the mall in the city’s core was a “horrible” an up-close view of the Red River's
move, he said. destructive power. He stands in
March 2017 near the flood obelisk,
“The flood was the impetus for a whole bunch of which marks river levels at the
downtown stuff,” he said. “While it was painful to go height of five historic floods.
through, the flood was a great thing for downtown Grand
Forks. It is way better now than it would have been,
though, unfortunately, we lost some historic buildings.”
An air-crane helicopter dumps
The flood’s destructive power put a new and stronger a 2,000-gallon bucket of water
emphasis on urban planning that previously was unseen, on the smoldering downtown
Galloway said. It also led to organizational efforts such a day after fires raged through
11 Grand Forks buildings.
as the Reimagining Downtown Committee. He added John Stennes
that federal recovery funds came with some stipulations, Grand Forks Herald
which also fostered a more conscious rebuilding
process.
New growth in the downtown neighborhood has
been guided by some of those principles, he said,
pointing to the stylistic common ground of stonework
and more traditional architecture still used in downtown
development.
HANGING ONTO HISTORY

The flood also spurred a new appreciation for history.
For individuals, that came in the form of clutching more
tightly to cherished family heirlooms, photo albums
and keepsakes. For the local Historic Preservation
Commission, that came in the establishment of federally
recognized historic districts.
61
Construction crews haul debris
away from the former City Center
Mall in downtown Grand Forks in
August 1998 as the last wall falls to
an excavator and opens the view
down Third Street for the first time
in more than 20 years.
Grand Forks Mayor Mike Brown

admires a downtown monument
chronicling the Flood of 1997
after using a sword to unveil it
on the fifth anniversary of the
disaster on April 19, 2002.
Jackie Lorentz
Grand Forks Herald
62
The downtown is now one of four Lyons had made his first trip back to
such districts listed in Grand Forks. The the business before the National Guard
neighborhood has several locations listed officially allowed people to return to
individually in the National Register of evacuation zones. The front door of the
We’ve been here
Historic Places. One of those listings is building had been so swollen with water for so many years
Lyons Auto Supply at 210 North Fourth that he’d needed to use a pry bar just to it’s just a blip
St. The business was founded in 1894 and get in and survey the damage. on the screen
is one of the oldest in town. It has stood
at its current location for more than a
He’d taken the time before the flood
when you think
to move products to higher shelves,
century. but it hadn’t been enough to keep it all of everything this
Jani Bohn and Jim Lyons, sister and dry. Lyons had stayed even after the place has gone
brother owners of the store and the
grandchildren of its founder, steered the
evacuation order to try to save the cars through.
stored in the shop’s expansive garage -- a
family business through the worst of the
former showroom and sales floor from
flood.
The siblings still keep reminders of
before the Great Depression. Though he — Jani Bohn, co-owner
managed to get some of them jacked of Lyon’s Auto Supply
the disaster throughout the store. Bohn
points to a tear-away daily calendar kept up onto concrete blocks, some still were
in a back office — its record frozen on destroyed by the high water.
April 17, the eve of the first round of flood The necessary cleanup efforts were
evacuations. Lyons retrieves a coffee can extensive, but the family wasn’t tackling
full of charred pieces of the buildings lost everything on its own.
in the fires that gripped the neighborhood. After the flood hit, Bohn said the store “We are back” says the sign outside. Jani
The roof of the automotive shop had been was, like most of town, “just a mess.” Lyons and her brother, Jim, are glad to be
back at work at Lyons Auto Supply store
strewn with the scorched chunks when The store caught an early glimpse of in downtown Grand Forks. The store was
the siblings returned after the floodwaters normalcy on May 1, just weeks after the started by their grandfather in 1894.
subsided. destruction.
63
DOWNTOWN
“A guy needed a fuel pump,” Bohn recalled, “which had

been kept on a top shelf, so it was dry. When we made
the sale, it was like, yes, we’re back.”
The return to business in the early days after the flood
was slowed by other obstacles. Beyond the products
ruined by water, Bohn said the shop’s invoicing system
also had been wrecked. The siblings replaced it for a
time with a “big clipboard” on which she and her brother
wrote down which products were sold and to whom.
“I didn’t get stiffed on one thing,” she said with a smile,
before adding simply “good people.”
Lyons said those people were key to pulling the store
back onto its feet.
“We had help dealing with this,” he said. “Some of the
guys from the warehouse that we do business with put
together, you could say, a recovery group. They came
down and helped us. … In some cases, we had some
customers come down to help.”
Bohn said her view of the flood is colored by her
usual tendency to find silver linings. To her, the flood
was a story of a community gathering to help its own. In
retrospect, she continues, the flood was really only one
point in the long story of Lyons Auto Supply.
“We’ve been here for so many years it’s just a blip on
the screen when you think of everything this place has
gone through,” Bohn said.
That long view on the past is one shared by city
leaders.
Haga describes the post-flood outlook on downtown
as a “back to the future” approach, which harkened to
the longtime character of the place -- a higher density
residential area with readily available commercial and
community value. As part of that, the neighborhood’s
housing stock generally was upgraded, he said. New
arrivals to the housing market -- such as the Elite
Brownstones condominium complex and JLG-designed
apartment center The Current -- were announced in the
years shortly after the flood.
Infusions to the business community soon followed.
DECIDING THE FUTURE

Businesses already downtown during the flood, such
as Lyons Auto, were faced with difficult decisions.
Many were impacted by water below and fire above,
a condition that made recovery an expensive,
dubious option. Bonzer’s Sandwich Pub is one such
establishment forced to decide whether to rebuild
downtown; the Grand Forks Herald was another.
Ultimately, both chose to rebuild downtown.
Herald employees had been forced to abandon their
posts in the early hours of April 19 as floodwaters began
to threaten downtown. By the end of the weekend, fire
had destroyed two of the Herald’s three downtown
buildings.
Despite the loss, newspaper staff continued to publish
news of the disaster, working first from the UND campus
and then from the public school in nearby Manvel, N.D.
64
The Herald didn’t miss a single day of do we put too much money in it or not,”
publication as it filed stories from remote he said.
locations and produced pages at both The The recovery effort especially was
Forum and in St. Paul. prone to touchy nerves, given the
Though the newspaper moved it press personal nature of the neighborhood’s
operations to the north end of town, losses. Brooks himself was a member of
all other functions stayed home in a the North Dakota National Guard and a
renovated building downtown. graduate student at UND during the flood.
In Galloway’s opinion, one of the He lived downtown with his wife in one of
biggest post-flood success stories was the apartment buildings that burned.
the preservation of such large downtown Brooks was stationed at a National
employers. He listed three specific Guard checkpoint working traffic duty
entities -- Alerus Financial Corp., Brady when he heard about the fire raging
Martz & Associates accounting firm and downtown. He and his wife had evacuated
Camrud Maddock Olson & Larson law their apartment building some time
firm -- which he said had considered earlier, and the Guard now was using
leaving the neighborhood and moving its own massive flatbed trucks to haul in
south, away from the floodplain. The city municipal fire trucks, which were unable
acted quickly to keep them where they to drive through the high floodwaters.
were by commissioning JLG to draw up “They went through my checkpoint,
plans for the downtown Corporate Center, and I was able to ask folks at that time if
a business-first pair of structures that the (old) Bonzer’s building was hit, as my
quickly rose into reality at the corner of apartment was above that,” Brooks said.
DeMers Avenue and Fourth Street. “A firefighter said at the time, ‘Yeah, that’s
“If they had left downtown, there gone.’ That’s how we found out it had
would be nobody downtown today,” said been hit, but I couldn’t call my wife up and
Galloway of the three firms now in the let her know, I had to wait until my shift
center. “It would have been really tough to was done.”
have attracted other people to come.” The only thing left of the building was
City Deputy Planner Ryan Brooks said the facade, Brooks said. When it came
he thinks the Corporate Center “really time to demolish the building, he said
worked well” in maintaining the local “they essentially just pushed it over.”
business community. Brooks got leave from the Guard for
Jim Lyons holds relics from the “It was probably fairly controversial
1997 flood — pieces of charred
a short while so he and his wife could
wood that landed on the roof of at the time, and there was a lot of recuperate. They flew to California to stay
Lyon’s Auto Supply in downtown discussion about whether that was the with her family and consider their options.
Grand Forks. The flood and fire
couldn’t destroy one of the
right decision,” Brooks said. “I think today Within just a few days, the couple felt the
town’s oldest businesses. that it was. Keeping those tenants in the need to return to Grand Forks.
Eric Hylden/Grand Forks Herald downtown was a huge benefit.” They have been here ever since.
Beyond the Corporate Center, Brooks Downtown development inherently
said the flood prompted the city to order comes with replacement, and no matter
Jim Lyons and Jani Bohn several consultant reports to plot a future if it’s a forced replacement or something
display a large photograph of for the downtown. The Town Square is a more planned, Brooks said such a
their historic downtown auto result of that reimagining process, as is
supply store under water dynamic often stirs difficult feelings. He
during the 1997 flood. the paddlewheel sculpture at the square’s pointed to today’s ongoing debate over
Eric Hylden entrance. Brooks describes the artistic Arbor Park — an area converted to green
Grand Forks Herald
detail as an “iconic piece” for the city space after the flood — as evidence of
today, a status he also ascribes to the the emotional weight of the downtown
Grand Forks Greenway — the beautified neighborhood.
buffer and park that now hugs both sides “When you start to have redevelopment
of the Red River. inside the city, you start to have change,”
Much like the Corporate Center, Brooks Brooks said. “It’s more difficult, whether
said other post-flood developments change is positive or negative for those
attracted their fair share of discussion, not next door or just passing by.”
all of it positive.
“For some people, downtown always Haffner is a reporter at the Herald. He can be
becomes a controversial piece in terms of contacted at (701) 780-1134 or on Twitter @ahaffner1.
65
EAST GRAND FORKS
EGF STANDS
FOR ‘EVERYBODY
GOT FLOODED’
BY APRIL BAUMGARTEN
GRAND FORKS HERALD
Dave Homstad remembers watching the water slowly

rise on the East Grand Forks dikes along the Red River.
The Blue Moose Bar and Grill owner who lives on The
Point recalled shuttering his doors as restaurant sales
dried up as the river swelled in mid-April 1997.
Since moving to East Grand Forks in 1962, he had
been through several floods. He had heard the rumors
that residents didn’t know the full extent of how bad the
situation was, and as he switched from business owner
to sandbagger, he began to realize East Grand Forks
might be in for its worst flood in history.
“At first, I was thinking we were going to beat this
thing, we always have,” he said. “Then I looked at the
sandbag dikes and thought, I think we are in trouble.”
Homstad and his family were among the roughly 8,900
residents who were forced to leave the city. Almost no
house was spared damage, but as a resident of The
Point, where the Red and Red Lake rivers meet, his
neighborhood, along with streets near Sherlock Park,
were hit the hardest. Homes that once sat in The Point
were condemned to make way for a dike, and half of
the 500 homes in East Grand Forks’ buyout program
came from the neighborhood between the Red River and
Sherlock Park.
In a matter of days, East Grand Forks went from a
lively city to a debris-filled lake.
‘THIS TIME, WE DIDN’T WIN’

Loren Abel might as well have written the book on
sandbagging.
As a kid growing up on Second Street near Sherlock
Park, it was just something everyone did each spring
when the Red River threatened to leave its banks.
Eventually, he would organize a group that made it its
mission to sandbag as floodwaters threatened the town.
“I just pulled out some of my stuff,” he said. “I have a
three-ring binder, a manual, for sandbagging from 1989,
and there were notes in there from ’97.”
66
Bob Bushy steadies the hand of his
daughter’s friend, Karen Bockwitz,
as she leaves the Bushy home at
12 First St. N.E. in East Grand Forks
on May 2. The floodwaters had
reached as high as 2 feet deep on
the second floor.
John Stennes/Grand Forks Herald Though an estimated
1,200 East Grand
Forks residents
Floodwaters reach the rooftops
of homes in the Sherlock Park
moved elsewhere
neighborhood of East Grand
Forks on April 22.
in the years after

the flood, the city is

almost back to its
pre-flood population
with about 8,650
residents.
67
EGF STANDS FOR
‘EVERYBODY GOT FLOODED’
Over the years, Abel had collected

information on how to fight flooding. The
group he helped found -- they were called
the Orange Hats because they wore the
orange hats typically worn by hunters
during deer season -- became a growing
group as the 1997 flood moved in to leave
its mark on the city.
“If you needed help, we would just say,
‘Look for the guys in the orange hats,’” he
said.
The group’s main mission that year was
meant to help save the low-lying areas Light shines through a decorative moose
cutout along the patio of the Blue Moose
-- previous dikes had been built, and Bar and Grill in East Grand Forks.
there didn’t seem to be a need for a lot of Jesse Trelstad/Grand Forks Herald
sandbagging at first, he said. But as the
flooding escalated that April, more and
more members joined their ranks to build house was fine. He repaired his home but
the walls of clay and sand. Truckloads later moved to Mentor, Minn., to continue
would come in daily as the group and his construction business. Despite all the
others worked to block the water. loss, no one died or was seriously hurt, an
Soon it became evident that impressive feat, Abel said.
sandbagging wasn’t going to save the city, He said the toughest part was knowing
no matter how hard they tried, Abel said. they couldn’t save the city, especially after
“We got a call from Gary Sanders,” Abel all of those other years of sandbagging
said of the consulting engineer for flood and preventing homes from being
recovery in East Grand Forks. “He says, destroyed.
‘Go tell your people to go take care of their “Growing up sandbagging, we always
houses and that we can’t win.’” won,” he said. “That was probably the
After realizing the battle was lost, worst, that we were losing.
Abel became a tour guide of sorts for “It used to be that sandbagging was
the Minnesota Department of Natural this fun spring get-together,” he said. “You
Resources, helping them map the city by went from sand place to sandbagging and
boat. They created a document showing you always won. This time, we didn’t.”
how high certain areas had flooded.
His house, which was on 20th Street
Northwest, had some water in the
‘GOODBYE, OLD FRIEND’
basement. For Mike Marek, a science teacher
He talked about how the degree of at Sacred Heart School, the Catholic
flooding was based on a 50-foot elevation, institution was his life.
which would result in the first floor of The instructor lived in a house that
his mother’s house flooding. Before once stood off the southern corner of the
threatening floods in the past, the family school. He recalled the water lapping up
would move all of their valuables to the against the dike and thinking the school
second floor. would be in trouble if the dike broke.
“I gave my mom a call and said, ‘We’re Before the flood overtook the school
OK. No water on the second floor,’” he and church next door, staff members
said of the 1997 flood. “That definition of moved to save what they could, including
being OK had variety.” computers, pictures and artifacts. Photos
He said other homes weren’t so lucky. in a book for a school dedication years
A friend’s home was almost completely later show the flood’s devastation: water
underwater, while his own home was rising alongside the buildings, a statue
slightly flooded. He estimated there were of Jesus that appears to be standing on
only about 10 houses in all of East Grand the river near the school, soaked hymnals
Forks that remained high and dry. sitting on the berm and classrooms
Abel, who helped with building littered with debris. The book also
inspections during the flood, said his describes mushrooms growing on the
mother’s home was bought out, but his floors.
68
In the aftermath of the flood, students,
teachers and staff were moved to a
35,000-square-foot building near the
Comfort Inn, or as then-Principal Dave
Andrys called it, “The Tin Can.”
Marks showing the reach of the
floodwaters are visible on the school.
The damage, plus the cost of removing
asbestos, made the expense of repairing
the school too high, so the congregation
decided to demolish the building.
“I was worried we would be no more,”
Marek said, adding that he, his neighbors
and co-workers were stressed because
they weren’t sure if they would have either
a job or school to go back to. “Families
were fractured because of the stress.”
Just before the building was
demolished, Marek walked through the
classrooms and wrote with paint on the
windows “Goodbye, old friend. The Spirit
is in us.”
“It was for all of the faculty and students
and their experience,” he said. “It was for
that love of school … in case something
wouldn’t pan out, in case this was the final
chapter.”
“We really loved those old buildings,”
Andrys said. “The old buildings were really
a part of us: the nooks and the crannies
and the smells and noises and the creaks.
That was always part of us.”
‘MAKE IT BETTER’
Homstad’s family also was split up
during the flood. He sent his wife and
daughter to North Carolina where his
spouse’s parents lived. He said he couldn’t
get back to his home on The Point until
mid-May. When he did return, he had to
kick open the swollen door. He stayed in a
trailer home from the Federal Emergency
Management Agency while they fixed the
house, which didn’t qualify for a buyout.
Before they left the Blue Moose —
Dave Homstad, owner of the Blue Moose Bar and Grill in East Grand
Forks, said his employees were eager to help clean up after the flood. The which used to sit on the west side of the
restaurant eventually moved across DeMers Avenue to its current location. East Grand Forks dikes just south of the
Sorlie Bridge — Homstad said they left the
neon lights turned on, though they went
The Blue Moose Bar and Grill in East Grand Forks slowly moves across out during the flood.
DeMers Avenue in November 1998 as Vernon Vidden, East Grand He told the story of his wife looking at
Forks, gets a good view from atop an earthern dike.
a flood camera, even at night, to see what
was happening around town.
“One night she called up,” Homstad said
TOP: Restaurant owner Dave Homstad talks about the move of the Blue emotionally. “‘We got the lights working in
Moose Bar and Grill and how the view from the deck has changed. The the restaurant,’ she said. … That told her
downtown area of East Grand Forks experienced a revival after the flood
and remains a busy place for shopping and nightlife. progress.”
69
Loren Abel checks out a hackberry tree in what once was his mother’s backyard in the former Sherlock Park neighborhood in East Grand
Forks. After the flood, the neighborhood became home to the Red River State Recreation Area. During the flood, Abel helped found a
flood-fighting group called the “Orange Hats.” If you needed help, all you had to do was “look for the guys in the orange hats.”
Eric Hylden, Grand Forks Herald
After working for Whitey’s restaurant in the community and that the school was have been possible. New infrastructure
East Grand Forks for 25 years, Homstad needed. was put into the city that has made East
had opened the Blue Moose in 1994. “The good Lord had a hand in this Grand Forks more efficient, Abel said.
He closed and reopened twice after the whole evolution, from being crushed to “I think the city has recovered nicely,”
flood — once after the waters receded in rising like a phoenix,” he said. he said.
May 1997 and again on Jan. 18, 1999, after “We talk about hope all the time, so that Though an estimated 1,200 East Grand
the restaurant, and the building itself, was a big part of it,” Andrys said, adding Forks residents moved out of the city in
were moved to the current location at 507 the school has become a new home for the wake of the flood, the city is almost
Second St. N.W. He called it “his baby to staff and students. back to its pre-flood population with
make or break.” The city also worked toward building a
about 8,650 residents, according to the
“I was contacted by my employees, and new City Hall for $7 million. With its dome
U.S. Census Bureau’s 2015 numbers. With
top and branched hallways, leaders have
they said when you need us back, we’ll added amenities, downtown has turned
dubbed it East Grand Forks’ “Taj Mahal.”
come clean up,” he said. around to become a major attraction for
Neighborhoods along Sherlock Park
East Grand Forks has changed over the visitors, as well as a boon for economic
were turned into the Red River State
years, especially in downtown and the growth.
Recreation Area. The park boasts 113
neighborhoods that were lost to the flood. campsites — 85 with full electrical In a way, the flood had its silver lining,
Sacred Heart built a $7.8 million school. hookups that came from condemned Homstad said.
Despite other schools being wiped out by homes. The campground attracts “I believe there is nowhere but up for
the flood, the public school system also hundreds of visitors each year. this community,” he said. “It was tough
recovered with new facilities, including The homes in The Point made way for to go through, but … it kind of made
a brand-new middle school and two the dike, but development in the city came everybody say it’s time to move on and
elementary schools. as well. New neighborhoods popped up make it better. That’s what happened.”
For Marek, who still lives in East as the city grew to the north and south.
Grand Forks and teaches at the new Downtown saw revitalization, and funding Baumgarten is a reporter for the Herald. Contact her
Sacred Heart School, the rebuilding was from the federal government helped the at (701) 780-1248 or abaumgarten@gfherald.com.
a sign from God that they mattered in city with projects that otherwise might not Follow her on Twitter @aprilbaumsaway.
70
Former East Grand Forks Mayor Lynn Stauss
stands in front of City Hall, a magnificent
landmark built after the historic Flood of 1997.
Eric Hylden, Grand Forks Herald
71
A temporary village of FEMA trailers to house
people displaced by the flood remains in April 1998
in south East Grand Forks. The footprint of the new
South Point Elementary School is in the background.
Former Principal Dave Andrys looks at an early class

photo in a hallway of Sacred Heart in East Grand
Forks. The school was rebuilt after the flood.
BELOW: East Grand Forks Sacred Heart teacher

Mike Marek (left) and former Principal Dave
Andrys share a light moment as they reminisce
about earlier days at Sacred Heart.
72
Volunteers rush to put the finishing touches
on Sherlock Forest Park in East Grand
Forks before a ribbon-cutting ceremony in
September 2011. The post-flood park, the
result of a giant volunteer campaign, was
being rebuilt after fire burned much of it to
the ground months earlier.
John Stennes, Grand Forks Herald
73
UND
COMMAND
CENTRAL,
HAVEN FOR
THE HOMELESS
BY ANDREW HAFFNER
GRAND FORKS HERALD
When the floodwaters rose, UND was one of the last

areas to be hit.
The campus, divided by the English Coulee on the
west side of Grand Forks, was far enough from the
river to avoid the initial onslaught that battered the
neighborhoods near its banks. Even still, a rise in the
usually docile coulee -- joined by overland flooding and
the backup of water through storm and sanitary sewers
-- soaked more than 70 buildings on campus. By the
time the waters receded, an estimated $75 million in
damage was done. Floodwaters damaged more than a
quarter of the university’s building stock and impacted
69 miles of steam, electrical and sewer infrastructure.
For then-UND President Kendall Baker and first lady
Toby Baker, the anomaly of the flood presented itself as
a unique chance for the university to serve the public
good.
“How many times in your lifetime do you get to be part
of a group that saves the community?” Kendall Baker
said. “That doesn’t happen very often, but we were given
that opportunity largely because of geography.”
COME ON OVER
The fact that much of the campus survived the flood
relatively untouched allowed UND to provide space for
many of the groups responding to the natural disaster.
Baker recalled walking past workspaces in university
facilities “having little signs up saying, this is Mayor (Pat)
Owen’s office, this is the FEMA office, this is the National
Guard’s office” and so on.
The magnitude of the destruction throughout town still
was being tallied when students were sent home April
19, just two weeks before they were scheduled to take
final exams.
74
UND students sandbag along the English
Coulee near Wilkerson Hall in April 1997.
UND students Kristi Leeds (left) and Amy Johnson

became best friends during the school year and were
sad the semester ended early because of the flood.
Gordon Henry, who served as vice as storm sewer backup claimed the
president for student services at the time, department’s downtown location.
said the decision to end the semester For those inside the UND network, the
early was based both on general security trials of the flood began to strengthen ties.
concerns and the logistical problems An initial group of university employees
of having a college campus devoid of displaced by the high waters -- including
services such as running water, electricity the Bakers -- soon inhabited the Plant
and telecommunications. Still, he said the Services Building. Later on, they had come
“No. 1 priority was the safety of everybody to live in student residence halls. Henry
there.” said the repurposing and settling into
Students were given the option to either makeshift homes to ride out the disaster
take the grades they had at the time or helped build a sense of camaraderie.
take an incomplete grade for the courses “When you pull together the
and determine with their professors a way administrators, faculty, staff and get them
working side by side and they’re sleeping
to finish up.
on floors together, you develop a sense
The early halt to the academic year was
of oneness,” he said. “You help people
a “watershed moment” in more than one
look beyond titles and status, just see
sense, UND spokesman Peter Johnson
each other as each other. It breaks down
said.
barriers.”
“I believe it was only the second time
For Johnson, that coming together was
in the history of the university that the a major characteristic of the flood.
semester was suspended,” Johnson said. “There was a real bonding that
“The first time happened during 1918, happened,” he said, beginning with a small
during the influenza epidemic that swept core on campus and expanding outward.
across the nation.” “Even as it got bigger, it was an incredibly
As the students moved out, a host of strong bond.”
newcomers were transferring their relief Johnson said people who lived it still
operations -- and, later, their home lives get together today to talk about the flood
-- onto campus. and the shared experiences that defined
Baker officially opened UND on April it. After the evacuation, he was separated
23 for use by the wider community. from his family for several weeks. When
Even before then, the emergency they were able to return to Grand Forks,
operations center at the Grand Forks the Johnsons moved onto campus to live
Police Department had moved to campus in a student residence hall.
75
UND
COMMAND CENTRAL,
HAVEN FOR THE HOMELESS
How many times in your

lifetime do you get to
be part of a group that
saves the community?
That doesn’t happen
very often, but we were
given that opportunity
largely because of
geography.
— Former UND
President Kendall Baker
They were far from alone. Ken Baker

said the UND residence halls housed at
various points more than 720 university
employees and their family members.
Those temporary residents were joined
by more than 620 displaced community
members from the Grand Forks area.
The Bakers themselves joined the ranks
of those seeking respite from flooded-
out homes. Though they already lived on
campus, the president’s residence had
been inundated by water. Rather than
leave the university, the Bakers moved
into Plant Services, where they and their
dog, Kodak, slept in a cubicle area on
mattresses procured from the residence
halls.
“We had two things that enabled us
to be healthy, wealthy and wise,” Toby
Baker said. One of those things were the
mattresses; the other was a set of porta-
potties.
“They were in pretty rough shape,” she
said, laughing.
The Bakers didn’t get much sleep,
but their on-campus location proved to
be a great help in addressing a host of
problems posed by the floodwaters. Toby
said they’d been granted clearance to
remain in town after the evacuation order.
As a result, they were on the scene for the
entirety of the event.
Longtime UND spokesman Peter Johnson says 1997 was only the second time the university
ONE BIG FAMILY suspended semester classes. The first was in 1918 during an influenza epidemic. Johnson
As the recovery continued, staff and rests at the foot of a fountain along the English Coulee, which runs through campus. He
said the flood brought the campus community closer together. Many evacuees stayed in
faculty lived their days much as anyone dormitories during the weeks of cleanup and gathered regularly for a “huge family meal.”
else in town, going about the business Jesse Trelstad/Grand Forks Herald
76
of cleaning up their homes and lending a But since 1997, when the ring dike was
hand for the wider rebuilding efforts. But built around the city, the impact has been
in the evening, those university employees “astronomical,” he said, describing the
living on campus would gather in what development as “the greatest thing that
then was Wilkerson Dining Hall for what could have ever happened to the city
Johnson called a “huge family meal.” itself.”
On one such evening, he might have Those improvements made by the city
been talking with other marooned have had an enormous impact on campus.
employees about tearing up drywall in his
ruined basement while his son, Thomas,
who was then only about 7 months old, WORRIES BEHIND US
would be crawling about on the dining With the English Coulee protected by
hall floor. the ring dike and under the control of
“Everyone would get together, and enhanced pump systems, he said the days
whatever happened during the day, they’d of substantial flooding along the waterway
be talking about it,” he said. “You wouldn’t effectively have ended. “There’s about 4
normally get that. Normally you’d go to 5 feet that it’ll bounce back and forth
home and you’d interact with your own in heavy rain, but it really doesn’t get
little family, but you wouldn’t get that anymore than that,” he said. “We used to
with other folks in the same way that you get people all along the coulee who would
would in this.” get flooded besides UND, but that doesn’t
Johnson said the bonds forged between really happen anymore.”
different areas of the university lasted long The campus itself also has added
after the river fell back within its banks. protection against any future rising waters.
When the 2011 Souris River flood hit Zitzow said some of the student
Minot, he said, some of those who rode facilities have been renovated with flood
out the flood at UND made the trip west protection in mind, and many buildings
to share some of the lessons learned at have been fitted with sewer valves to
home. allow them to be shut off from the wider
“We encouraged them to look for sewer system in the event of an overload
optimistic solutions and try to prep for the or backflow.
worst but do it in a way that you’re looking “That was one of our weak links,” he
toward the future,” Johnson said. “And we
said of the flood era. “Those valves are
tried to help them understand what they
really critical; they shut the whole line off,
might be looking at in terms of loss of
so that water can’t go backward into the
students.”
building.”
By the fall semester that followed the
The university also updated its
flood, UND had lost about 900 students
from the previous year’s mark, falling damaged steam delivery systems and
from 11,300 to slightly fewer than 10,400 installed a backup water feed system for
students. The loss was significant but its campus steam plant, Zitzow said. If city
still represented a much smaller decline water supplies were to be shut down as
than earlier estimates, which predicted as they were during the flood, he said UND
many as a quarter of the students would would be able to reroute water from the
leave the university behind. swimming pool in Hyslop Sports Center
Beyond the shoring of human relations as a last resort.
on campus, the university also fortified But among all the developments at the
itself physically against any further university, Zitzow said the biggest is the
onslaught of the river. nature of the battle itself — namely, that it
Larry Zitzow, the recently retired UND seems to have ended for now.
director of facilities, said post-flood “What’s happened to the situation at
improvements made to the system to UND is that there is no fight anymore,” he
control high water are “gigantic.” said.
“I worked at UND for 43 years and
fought three fairly major floods, but it was Haffner is a reporter at the Herald. He can be
almost every year that we would fight the contacted at (701) 780-1134 or on Twitter @
coulee water,” Zitzow said. ahaffner1.
77
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APRIL 16, 2017

2OTH FLOOD ANNIVERSARY

WATER UNDER THE BRIDGE

Since 1939 Your Ho

34 AND THE WATER CAME RUSHING IN

Displaced residents are resettled and the ghosts of

Grand Forks firefighters Mike Sande

EAST GRAND FORKS

UNIVERSITY OF NORTH DAKOTA

We’ll never forget how our

TOGETHER, WE ROSE proud to continue serving

TO THE CHALLENGE. xcelenergy.com/Community.

© 2017 Xcel Energy Inc.

A motorist uses his car door as a shield on Dec. 17, 1996, as

FLOOD COMES FULL CIRCLE

HARD TO IMAGINE National media descended in droves,

Tim Holt takes a breather while digging out

The Grand Forks County Historical society grounds and buildings

The Society maintains seven museum buildings:

Church in Grand Forks, and Ronnie Ford patrol a dike on

“And that stuck with me because I

“If (the lowboys) had been waiting for us right away,

RECALLING THE RUINS

Water still reaches the rooftops of houses in the Lincoln Drive

According to a Herald story, about 1,500 East Grand

and fire. www.grandforks.org

Former Grand Forks Mayor Pat Owens stands near a portrait of

Describing the disaster, Stauss says he frequently

upsetting Owens in the 2000 mayoral race.

said. 151 South 4th Street,

Then came the sirens, the eerie blaring filling residents

They’d fought the good fight,

4: State fire investigators begin probing

THREE TRAGIC DAYS

2 p.m.: A helicopter dumps water on the

system by then had been in place for

Large crowds gather

One Great Team.

Lauren Madsen walks her English mastiff, Tiger, in the

Opticare - Forks Vision Clinic Opticare - Crookston Vision Associates

n u in g to p rov id e warmth and

“It gets a little harder every year to find them,” Bob

A.B. Dickie rests on his front

We service and repair our residential and

“The first couple of times I was down there, it was kind

“Now, I don’t even think about it that much anymore,”

‘NOTHING IS GOING Let Us Build

“I think it was when we lost power for so long that all

Twenty years after the flood, Bob and Peg

Bob and Peg Alderson

Wearing a swimsuit her

Bishop Michael Cole blows his

Kelly Jennifer Ross Dana Dennis Dan

Open Daily 9-6, Sat. 9-2 • www.wallsrx.com 001554889r1

Flying disc golfers (from left) Mike

Andrew Brand play through a field of

SINCE 2009 701-772-6631

(Left to right): Susan Kraft, Alice

Fifth-grader Christian Levitt gets a boost from his

For residents of Grand Forks’ Riverside Park

STRANGE SIGHTS, SOUNDS

The Security Building, the first downtown building

A PHOENIX RISES FROM THE RUINS

“Normally, of course, water is grated away,” he said.