Minot Floods: Crest Hit But Still Flooding

The Minot, ND floods have hit their crest, below what was expected but higher than it has ever been. And the floods will continue, From the Minot Daily News: By late Sunday afternoon Minot Mayor Curt Zimbelman was confident enough to say "we believe the crest has passed." Zimbelman was referring to a river peak of 1,561.72 feet, nearly four feet higher than the city's all-time mark of 1,558 feet set in 1881 and nearly six and one-half feet over the fearful flood of 1969. The Souris reading at Minot's Broadway Bridge was 1,561.5 feet late Sunday afternoon and was forecast by the National Weather Service to continue dropping.
Therein lies a problem, however. The river has no intention of running out of town nearly as fast as it arrived. Flows exceeding the all-time record can be expected at least into next weekend. Still, any decline was worthy of notice by beleagured citizens weary of worrying about their vacated homes and wondering when they might be given the okay to return.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers provided some insight into that timetable Sunday, saying that flows out of Lake Darling Dam had been reduced from 24,000 to 23,000 cubic feet per second Sunday. Further decreases of 1,000 to 2,000 cfs per day can be expected over the next 14 days.
http://www.minotdailynews.com/page/content.detail/id/556174/1-561-72--Souris-crest-sets-record-four-feet-higher.html?nav=5010
But there was good news: In the days ahead, while the water remains well over flood stage and a continuing threat to the city, all effort will be required to maintain and protect the integrity of dikes protecting infrastructure and at least one neighborhood within Minot. A large portion of northeast Minot remains remarkably dry, courtesy of a massive dike built primary along Fourth Avenue for the purpose of keeping any flood waters from inundating North Broadway.
What really sucks for most of the residents who have been flooded out is that they did not have flood insurance:
FEMA: 375 of 4,000 flooded homes have flood insurance
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Just how economically devastating the flood of 2011 will turn out to be might best be quantified by the number of residences that were covered by federal flood insurance or rather, the number not covered by insurance.
According to FEMA, as of June 22, just 471 homes had flood insurance policies in effect. Of those, 375 are located in the area now flooded.
It's been estimated that 4,000 homes in the Minot area sustained flood damage.
Surprisingly, the Minot Fire Department is not that busy:
Saturday: 11:36 a.m., 400 N. Main St., tree on power line.
Saturday: 3:52 p.m., 2915 N. Broadway, fire in portable generator unit.
Saturday: 5:20 p.m., 205-20th Ave. SE, fluid cleanup after vehicle hit gas pump.
Saturday: 6:17 p.m., 501-24th St. NW, tree on power lines.
Saturday: 8:23 p.m., 1021-6th Ave. SW, electrical mast to house was smoking.
Saturday: 8:26 p.m., 1800 Valley St., smoke at water lift station.
Sunday: 6:14 a.m., 407-3rd St. SE, alarm malfunction.
Sunday: 11:41 a.m., intersection of First Avenue West and North Main Street, service call.
http://www.minotdailynews.com/page/content.detail/id/556168/6-27-2011.html?nav=5549
This is an actually a busy time for the fire department, as they usually only have maybe 3-5 calls a day.
So, hopefully the worst is over for Minot and surrounding areas, but they have to hope that a levee doesn't break.
When it is all said and done, many people have had their lives changed forever, but thousands of others did not. This will go down as a flood that happened and the heroes are both government and private contractors and their workers.