8 WRD - Division 11 Mission Blog

Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Reported by Clif Brochman via cell phone. Photos from Chuck Woodward.

A surreal world greeted us on our first morning in Fargo, ND. We arrived very late on Tuesday evening in cold drizzling rain; but, this morning our world is covered with five inches of snow with drifts between two and three feet hindering our movements and even blocking the hotel side doors.

During the morning meeting it was decided the two Auxiliary communications teams would split up with Team One staying in Fargo with one DART team and Team Two heading to Bismarck, ND with the other DART team and their resources.

Team One’s day was most planning, logistics and waiting as is often the case early in a deployment.

As Team Two drove out of town, we could see that Fargo is sandbag city. Even the electronic billboards flash phone numbers for sandbagging volunteers to call. Big busses of volunteers from the Twin Cities were arriving at our hotel as we left. This is a city with a single-minded focus.

During the first twenty miles of our 200-mile drive to Bismarck, all we saw was water on both sides of the road. This land is a flat bathtub basin and the floodwaters went out for as far as we could see. The driving conditions were marginal with sleet and constant gusts of wind. Twice we ran into water-covered roads and had to detour 60 miles out of our way. By the time we reached Bismarck our vehicles were covered with what we estimate to be thousands of pounds of ice. Fortunately the command center had located a warm garage where we could thaw out our vehicles and the boats for the night.

The main activity today in Bismarck is blasting the ice dams on the Missouri river. Blast teams from the Corps of Engineers and the National Guard went out late in the afternoon and again about 11:30pm. The DART team was also on hand with the airboat in case of an emergency, but all went as planned and they were not needed.

That is the only activity on the schedule this evening. We will see what the morning meeting brings.