10 Years Ago...

The winter of 1996-1997 proved to be one of the most severe winters in recorded history in the city of Grand Forks and the surrounding area. The winter brought no fewer than eight blizzards to the area besides other days of snowfall. The Grand Forks area recorded nearly 100 inches of snowfall for the winter more than doubling our average snowfall for the season. The photo featured here was taken at the height of the winter along the road from inside of a car at eye level. The winter's worst fury came in the beginning of April with an ice storm and blizzard, nicknamed Hard-handed Hannah, struck the area. The storm struck with such ferocity it destroyed power lines by covering them with a thick coat of ice and hitting the area with a strong blizzard with 50 mph winds.

It was soon after this when the snow started to melt and the river began to rise rapidly. The fight to save the city was punctuated by community spirit and sweat by people of all ages and background.
By April 17, the river passed the predicted crest of 49 feet as set by the National Weather Service and was still rising rapidly. On April 18, Friday, the river reached 51 feet and the dike broke in the Lincoln Park area at 8:00 am forcing the evacuations of the residents of that area. Conditions continued to worsen as dikes started to weaken and as water started to top the dikes in the Central Park area of Grand Forks and Riverside.

On the left, citizens sandbagging a residential area, trying to prevent the rising river water from further reaching any homes. This picture is actually taken in a neighborhood just a few blocks southwest from my apartment.

Below is a picture of a select area of UND campus. On the left side of the picture is Smith Hall, which was attached to the hall that I lived in for the first 2 years of my college life. When I moved to campus, two years after the flood, they were still doing a lot of remodeling and fixing up of the dorms and the basement levels. The flooding water here is from the coulie that ran through campus. I remember when living in these dorms, everyonce and a while during the spring the water would rise real quickly, sometimes overflowing, in a freakish way. Nothing like this though.

Sorlie Bridge, (across the Red River between North Dakota and Minnesota) at high flow.

The sandbags didn't hold back the raging Red River.

Non-essentail businesses were requested to close to aid in the flood fight but the water was stronger than the human spirit. By the afternoon of Saturday, April 19, all of the downtown area of Grand Forks was inundated by floodwaters. The nastiest blow of this day was the fire in the Security building in the downtown area and the subsequent destruction of 11 buildings. By this time, 75% of Grand Forks was flooded and 90% of its sister city, East Grand Forks, MN.

Most of the information on the post was found online, as I wanted to make sure I had my facts straight. I wasn't living in Grand Forks when the flood happened, but I do remember my two cousin's from Grand Forks who came to Bismarck and attended school there for a while. The house that they lived in at the time was in the area of where the dike broke first. There were a quite a few homes in that area that were totally demolished and a new dike was built in the place of the homes. I could only imagine how devastating it was for everyone.

*Photos found on Google Images.

Posted below is a video from the Flood...