City of Fargo to Put In Additional Flooding Measures at Five Locations

The river is expected to crest at 35 feet early next week

FARGO, N.D. — The City of Fargo is putting additional measures in place for the flood fight.

The Red River is at about 25 feet. Flood level is 18 feet, and it’s expected to crest at 35 feet early next week.

“We’ve been continually refining our protection plans ever since the emergency declaration has been made a couple weeks ago. So this plan is based on the deterministic forecast now that we know what the crest level is going to be,” Nathan Boerboom, division engineer with the city of Fargo, said.

In the next few days the city will be adding protection to five locations.

Trapbags, which are four foot tall sandbags, will be put around the Oak Grove neighborhood, Second Street and Main Avenue, Lindenwood Park, and 64th Avenue by Drain 53.

“[Trapbags] are something the city’s used before, we’ve seen water up against it, we know it will perform appropriately,” Boerboom said.

Clay levees will be used at Madelyn Meadows west of Davies High School.

The city plans to start putting those measures into place Thursday and hopes to be done before the weekend.

Engineers estimate securing these five areas will be $100,000. Mayor Mahoney says the cost of the flood fight so far is $450,000.

“The measures we’re using here are less than what we’ve had to do before due to our crests being projected at 35 feet, we were able to scale back some of our plans and take an approach that will be less damaging to our infrastructure,” Boerboom said.

Water has already seeped far into Oak Grove Park, and the football field at Oak Grove Lutheran School is completely under water.

Most of Oak Grove Park is deserted, except for some who wanted to see the flooding conditions.

“It’s like 30, 32 degrees out here and I think it’s shorts weather,” Zachary Vig said.