Date: Tue, 8 Apr 1997 02:43:03 -0500 From: Zach Heilig <zach@blizzard.gaffaneys.com> To: Guy Helmer <ghelmer@cs.iastate.edu> Cc: chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Spring sucks (really :-) Message-ID: <19970408024303.27597@murkwood.gaffaneys.com> In-Reply-To: <Pine.HPP.3.96.970407170045.6072A-100000@sunfire.cs.iastate.edu>; from Guy Helmer <ghelmer@cs.iastate.edu> on Mon, Apr 07, 1997 at 05:03:51PM -0500 References: <19970404043040.38326@murkwood.gaffaneys.com> <Pine.HPP.3.96.970407170045.6072A-100000@sunfire.cs.iastate.edu>
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On Mon, Apr 07, 1997 at 05:03:51PM -0500, Guy Helmer wrote:
> On Fri, 4 Apr 1997, Zach Heilig wrote:
> > It's flood time again along the Red River (the northern one, not the one
> > in Texas). If anyone is curious where all the snow goes when it melts,
> > check our newspapers web page(s):
If anyone tried to look recently, there was no power in this area, but it
should be back now...
> I'm glad I'm not up in the Dakotas this spring. I feel for you (and
> everyone else I know up there)! From the TV pictures yesterday, it looks
> like the storm over the weekend just made things worse...
Well, we only have one confirmed fatality from this blizzard. That is
actually not too terrible, as there are usually more fatalities during
such a bad blizzard. He was dumb enough to walk away from his stalled
car, he would have survived (most likely) had he stayed in his car. There
were three others in a car that slipped into a water filled ditch, and two
of them had to swim (through the thin ice!!) to get help. All of them did
survive, but rescuers had to take a boat to a deserted farmhouse to pick up
one of the people. The boat could not make it all the way, so one of the
firemen had to walk on the ice (but broke through and had to wade through
waste deep water). But, at least nobody was seriously injured in that
incident.
Yes, some people have been out of power since Friday night, and are still
out. They are expecting sub-zero weather tonight, so those people are going
to be a bit cold tonight. Some people are not going to get power until the
weekend. Grand Forks was limping along with one medium voltage line supplying
the entire city earlier on the 7th. I think we have 3 lines (2 high-voltage
ones) on now. There are normally 6 lines into the city.
Here in Grand Forks proper we were pretty lucky, there are still about 200
houses without power, but we are mostly back all back. Some were only out for
about 2 hours, we were out for 36 hours. Most of the power lines just
couldn't handle the thunderstorm / freezing rain / hail / ice / snow / winds
gusting to 70 mph [and now we are looking at record flooding]... There was at
least 400,000 out of power at the height of the storm (there are only 650,000
or so in the entire state...). I believe there are currently 25,000 total in
the area (including Minnesota) still out of power. There are linemen from all
over the the region (even Canada) fixing the various lines. One company
(there are several, 6 I think) ordered 500 poles for themselves. A lot of the
downed poles are out in the middle of full ditches, so I wouldn't like that
job at the moment.
I was out driving around during the height of the storm (only in town...
still not a good idea, I didn't have much choice)... It was really strange to
see traffic lights blinking green, and some were blinking 4-way green. All in
sync with the street lights and the radio station. This is currently
considered the absolute worst blizzard the National weather service has
analyzed anywhere for at least 1941 (and perhaps even further back).
They are now expecting the water to get to 49+ feet. It is currently at 39.15
feet (and rising)... South of us in Wahpeton and Breckenridge saw record
flooding (almost 20 feet, they evacuated at least Breckenridge since some of
the dykes broke). Here in GF, they are working with splitting the work
between cleaning up after the blizzard, building temporary dykes, and
coordinating sand-bagging efforts. The water has reached the permanent dykes.
At 42 feet, it starts flowing over the lower dykes.
There are still only two radio stations broadcasting. Yesterday, there was
only >ONE< radio station along the MN/SD,ND boarder all the way to Canada
[based from Fargo].
In the house here, the temperature did get down in the forties once Sunday
afternoon. We did have a kerosene heater in the garage that we brought out,
walked a mile to the gas station (that had just opened when it got power),
got the kerosene, and got the basement and living room up to about 60 degrees
(that is comfortable, really!). We also had a campstove for cooking and other
sources for light. It became very appearant that we were by shear luck mostly
prepared for this.
The worst problem was boredom... I think I called about everybody twice, and
we played games and otherwise tried to occupy our time.
But, even through situations like this, this is still probably one of the
better places to live in this country :-) Everything is starting to seem
normal again, and it's kinda hard to remember that there was actually a
blizzard a few days ago...
That's about all for now...
--
Zach Heilig (zach@blizzard.gaffaneys.com) | ALL unsolicited commercial email
| is unwelcome. I avoid dealing
| with companies that email ads.
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