Missouri River Flood 2011: part 4

Another "no good news to report" post about the flood.

Corey has literally been working his butt off. I can't even begin to estimate how many people he has helped through sandbagging/delivering sandbags/building dikes/moving furniture/etc. He is back at work today ... even though he will be very busy at work, I'm sure it will be a welcome break form all the manual labor he has had the past few days.

Now for the numbers:
The last time I posted I hinted about a rumor of dam releases of 120,000 cfs. Well, that was confirmed and releases of 120,000 cfs will begin by this Thursday. Then they announced that 150,000 cfs will be released later this month. As a comparison, the video below was taken two days ago, during flows of 75,000 cfs ... which is HALF of the projected releases of 150,000 cfs. Wow.



Here is a gallery of photos from the same fly-over. Definitely worth a view.

Yesterday the Corps started releasing 85,000 cfs - that water is starting to arrive the Biamarck-Mandan area today (it takes about 30 hours for the water to move from the dam to Bismarck). Click here to view the river level chart. With the higher releases from the dam, there will be lots of action on this chart in the next few days. And just for the super geeks out there, here is a link to a page with many charts for the river at different locations.

On Sunday, we had "one last hurrah" at the Altringer's home to celebrate my cousin's graduation. The gathering was in the midst of evacuations, chaos, and dike construction. It was a nice break from the stress of it all.


This was the view from their driveway, looking across the street to the north.


LOTS of heavy truck traffic. Many roads in Bismarck-Mandan are closed to allow trucks to move faster and safer. It looks like a war zone around here.

My uncle Bob and his family have completely moved out of their home. Bob is rallying support for a bay-plugging and levee project that is currently being constructed. He says, "we are going down swinging."

. . .

In other news, we will be leaving tomorrow for Alaska (to visit my parents). I am excited to go, but sad to leave this behind us. I love this town and I want to be here to support everyone through the flood. We've had this trip booked for months, so we are going to keep our plans and head north. In my absence, I will be placing my Etsy shop in "vacation mode" ... the shop will appear empty/closed, but rest assured it will re-open and will be better than ever when we return mid-june.

So here is the plan:
FLY - June 1 - depart Bismarck Wednesday afternoon for Minneapolis. Depart Minneapolis in the evening - direct flight to Anchorage. Arrive in Anchorage just after midnight (which is 4 am our time). Sleep and rest at the airport until 6 am.
TAXI - June 2 - airport to train depot
TRAIN - eight-hour train ride from Anchorage to Denali National Park
HOTEL - June 2-3 - two nights just outside Denali Park
BUS - June 4 - depart early morning from Denali Park to Anchorage Airport (6-hour tour drive)
FLY - June 4 - late afternoon short flight from Anchorage to Kodiak
We'll be fishing, hiking and pretending to be locals in Kodiak until June 15, when we start our trip home (we will arrive back in Bismarck June 16).

So here is a hope and wish that Kya is a good little traveler ...
I'll send an early public apology to whomever is lucky enough to sit next to us on the seven-hour flight to Anchorage.