City of Fargo, Cass County Provide 2019 Flood Fight Update

the city is taking precautions with over nine miles of emergency levees

FARGO, N.D. — The City of Fargo and Cass County hold the first of many flood meetings to keep the community aware of the changes they will see over the next few weeks.

Fargo Mayor Tim Mahoney says the pace the snow is melting at is good for the time being but he doesn’t expect it to stay that way for long.

“We have a nice melt, the roads are now dry. You can ride around, do some stuff. When you’re down south, I went 50 miles down south. We have a lot of snow that’s in the fields. We have a lot of snow that’s out there.”

When the snow melts here in Fargo, he wants to keep the city prepared.

The city is taking action by installing nine miles of emergency levees, and using trap bags, sandbags and gravel blisters to prepare for the flood fight.

Mahoney says a change in the weather such as rainfall could affect the flood but the city will continue to stay updated from the National Weather Service.

“We’re fully aware of the risk we have now. Our big concern is yes, a weather event because you know when you have right now. But you just don’t know what might come in the next month and we’ve had goofy weather this winter so let’s see what happens.”

Cass County engineers say they expect to see 2009–2011 flood elevation levels in rural areas outside of Fargo such as Argusville and Harwood.

“For those areas, people need to not only be thinking about their flood protection, but what they need to do and the supplies they need to have so once their access is cut off, that they’re able to live and operate out of their house without access.”

Starting Tuesday, the city of Fargo will start filling 100,000 sandbags a day.

Eighth graders from Fargo and West Fargo School Districts are just a few of the volunteers pitching in.

What we don’t ever do in Fargo is we don’t ever lose a flood fight. We will be prepared and we can store the sandbags if we don’t need them. But it’s always that effort to get them going if we need them.”

Fargo Sandbag Central will run Monday through Fridays at 2301 8th Avenue North.

The city is in critical need of volunteers for their 8 a.m. and 2–7 p.m. shifts.