Minnesota reports its first “probable” case of Swine Flu:
Doug Schmitz, mayor of the town about 60 miles northwest of Minneapolis, said details on the case remain sketchy.”From people I’ve talked to no one seems really alarmed, though that could change once we get details,” Schmitz said. “At this point, everyone’s staying calm.”
Well, that’d be a good idea.
Let’s hope the regional media – which wets its pants over thunderstorm warnings – can do the same.
Chrysler takes Denny Hecker down a half billion.
The financial services arm of automotive giant Chrysler won a $476.9 million judgment against embattled car dealer Denny Hecker in the latest blow to his crumbling auto dealership empire.
Well, at least he has the mortgage and real estate businesses to fall back on. I’m sure they’re doing swell.
The latest news from Fargo/Moorhead is that the Red River of the North is headed for another crest in 2-3 weeks, and it could be higher than the one last weekend. There’s some controversy about this – Fargo’s mayor Dennis Walaker, who is an engineer with some background in the subject, says he believes it’ll actually be lower than last week’s peak – but time will tell.
In any case, the Red will remain high, and the dikes will to some extent remain under pressure, and a wet spell in the next few weeks could change all that for the worse.
So while Mayor Walaker has told the citizens of Fargo to rest up this weekend (and they deserve it), city engineers and workers are checking the dikes, and making plans to raise the ones they have, and reinforce and upgrade the secondary dikes they’ve built as insurance against failures in the primary dike system.
So here’s my question: anyone in the Twin Cities thinking about car-pooling up to help one of these weekends? If the next crest falls on a weekend, I’m thinking about trekking up to the F/M, and I thought I’d see if anyone else was interested.
Hopefully Mayor Walaker is right and it won’t be an issue, but…well, see the title.
Interested in opposing the Baby DNA bill? Check out the following:
And make sure you call your state reps, senators, and of course Governor Pawlenty. Tell ’em you don’t want the state building a genetic database without our informed consent.
The Boston Glob has a fantastic photo essay on the flooding in Fargo, Moorhead, Oxbow and Bismarck.
Well worth a look.
The eastern 100 miles of I-94 in North Dakota – from Jamestown to Fargo – has been closed to make way for an evacuation:
The North Dakota Department of Transportation and Highway Patrol have closed the eastbound lanes of Interstate 94. The closure is to prepare for a voluntary evacuation of the Fargo area and to help with the transfer of flood-fighting resources.
I don’t recall ’94 ever closing (away from the immediate Fargo-Moorhead area – around bridges and such) for anything but blizzards in the past.
A high school classmate of mine who lives in the “exurbs” north of Fargo writes:
Just a note that if you’re interested in listening to local flood coverage in Fargo, below is a link.My daughter is out again sandbagging today.Many volunteers and homehowners are exhausted, many others still eager. Keep them in your thoughts and prayers.Thanks – [redacted]
Wish I could get up there. I’m banking energy and vacation time in case Saint Paul and Newport flood again.
…and you’re not already sandbagging, Esme Murphy (from WCCO TV) notes via Twitter:
SANDBAGGERS needed – go to Hope Lutheran church in Fargo – 2nd Fargo exit on 94 25th street south 2 miles 2 church – will bus u in.
Sounds pretty drastic up there.
This one blows my mind; all you Jamestown natives who read the blog will get it.
On Tuesday, the city’s airport was closed due to flooding:
The airport is on the high ground. The airport remains closed to fixed-wing planes today.
This, just in time for the blizzard, as the flooding in the lowlands of the James Valley (which I wrote about yesterday) kicks off.
And it is kicking off in earnest; apparently the “worst case” forecasts show both the Jametown and Pipestem dams rising to within a foot of their emergency spillways, even as the Army Corps of Engineers increases outflows from the dams to compensate for the recent rain and massive melt-off. Over that level, and the dams’ll release directly into the rivers without any regulation, pushing the normally-sluggish (and already-swollen) James way over its normally-ample banks. The Corps of Engineers is working on building temporary dikes, and sandbagging is reportedly underway.
(Via It’s Good To Be In N.D. the only Jamestown-centered blog I can find)
A few weeks ago, I noted the 43rd anniversary of the greatest blizzard of my lifetime, the Great North Dakota Blizzard of ’66.
Of course, all that snow had to go somewhere.
The Army Corps of Engineers had put up a dam on the James River – the longest un-navigable river in the world – in the fifties, which put a stop to the frequent floods that had plagued the city when that shallow, muddy river had gotten even the faintest surge of water. But Pipestem Creek – which joins the James in Klaus Park, on the west side of Jamestown, under the Fort Seward bluffs, a place that was the city’s original reason to exist since its days as an Arikara camp since time immemorial – had no dam at the time. And so the spring runoff pushed the Pipestem – and the James, south of the confluence – over their banks.
I was three at the time. Dad spent a couple of nights sandbagging. I remember worried conversations about the sandbag line protecting downtown (also our neighborhood, although our house was on higher ground) being more fragile than people would have liked.
And best of all? I remember the National Guard putting its command post or supply dump or something across the street from our house, in the yard in front of Trinity Hospital. Skids of sandbags, trucks full of sand, front-end loaders and, best of all, an amphibious DUKW “Duck” truck congregated there, with streams of guys coming and going at all hours.
A few years later, the Corps finished a dam over the Pipestem. And that was the last flood Jamestown saw.
Until now. The immense snowfall this year – more than the usually-dry state, more famous for wind than snow, has seen in a generation – is causing flooding even in Jamestown.
Of course, as a blizzard pounds the state, the flooding is everywhere. An ice dam on the Missouri River, at its confluence with the Heart River, is hbacking up water into Bismarck and Mandan. The National Guard and, believe it or not, the Coast Guard tried to blow the jam open earlier today; we’ll wait to see what happens. In the meantime, another huge ice jam north of the city threatens to let spill another deluge into Bismarck.
Of course, Fargo is frantically sandbagging against a crest that is supposed to be higher than 1997’s epic flood; in Grand Forks, which was largely destroyed in ’97, the crest is expected to be competitive with the epic of 12 years ago.
All the while, a blizzard is thrashing the state.
There are times I miss the place. I wish I could be there now.
…associating “North Dakota” with “drought”. That’s mostly what we had when I was a kid, or so it seemed.
It seems lit’s never quite perfect:
The National Weather Service has issue a flood warning for Stutsman County and much of the state.
The warning, which will be in effect until 9:45 a.m. Tuesday for urban areas and small streams in much of North Dakota, said that heavy runoff from snowmelt and ice jams on small streams and rivers are causing widespread flooding in western and southern North Dakota. As precipitation develops over the next day, man areas could see rapid rises in local streams and rivers. Rates of more than an inch per hour are expected from stronger thunderstorms.
Interesting to see what happens in Minnesota.
…of my dad coming home from the office…
…and not leaving the house for three days.
Perhaps the greatest North Dakota blizzard of all was 43 years ago today (and tomorrow,and the next day).
This photo was taken near my hometown, Jamestown.
Yes, in North Dakota the power poles are 20-odd feet tall.
It’s “jokingly” captioned “I believe there is a train under here somewhere! “. I remember seeing newspaper photos (years after the fact, in the stacks at the library) of a Northern Pacific passenger train stuck in a drift that pretty much buried the locomotives to the roof.
The MinnPost notes that agriculture is apparently “left out” of Porkulus:
In the blizzard of new research funding created by the federal stimulus bill, however, an important science has been left out in the cold: agriculture. The stimulus package approved by Congress and President Obama includes $10 billion for the National Institutes of Health, $3 billion for the National Science Foundation and $2 billion for the Energy Department — but not a penny for competitive research in the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). One early version of the Senate’s plan included $100 million for agricultural science research, a tiny amount relative to the other research spending, but it did not survive the negotiating process.
Right.
Because the ag sector is so undersubsidized in normal times.
Because federal pork isn’t so seductive that rock-ribbed conservative farmers on the plains, real Americans who wouldn’t vote for a Democrat for President (and haven’t in generations), keep sending pork-snuffling gerbils like Kent Conrad and Tom Daschle and Byron Dorgan and Chuck Hagel to Congress.
Because almost eighty years of comprehensive farm subsidies have made agriculture such a stable enterprise, have rescued the “family farm”, and have kept food prices down.
Thank goodness Obama skipped something we need. Perhaps even he’s too smart to risk those consequences.
As I noted earlier, free-lance journalist, former NPR reporter/Miss North Dakota/Fargo North alum Roxana Saberi is being held incommunicado in Iran.
Ed at Hot Air notes:
This puts Barack Obama’s “smart power” foreign policy to the test. If Saberi’s case gets a lot of attention, the State Department will feel the pressure to get her released. This happened a few times during the Bush administration, which succeeded in all but one case to gain the release of arrested Americans.
Of course, Congress is frequently the engine of the “attention” that needs to be paid. What is the position of NoDak’s two Senators, arch-liberal Obama supporters Kent Conrad and Byron Dorgan?
There was a time we could have counted on Norm Coleman to be a voice for justice in these cases. God willing, we will again.
Where is Amy Klobuchar, figuratively (and where is Al Franken, literally)? Do either of our Senators/would-be Senators have the falafel to smack down the mullahs?
North Dakota House of Representatives bans abortion:
The bill, which now moves to the Senate, is a direct and legally interesting challenge to Roe V. Wade and is seen by many as a backdoor to outlawing abortion.
The House voted 51-41 yesterday declaring that a fertilized egg has all the rights of any person.
This could be to Roe what Heller was to the Second Amendment; the first step in a battle that leads to a cataclysmic battle royale in the Supreme Court.
Which means the good guys have a few years to reverse their electoral fortunes and take the US Senate back. Before it’s too late.
…are greatly exaggerated:
The North Dakota Department of Transportation announced on Tuesday afternoon that the westbound lane of Interstate 94 from Mandan to Dickinson will remain closed tonight through Wednesday morning until the road can be cleared. Blowing and drifting snow with heavy accumulation will continue to create hazardous driving conditions in the westbound lane throughout the afternoon and evening.
At this time, the eastbound lane of Interstate 94 from Dickinson to Mandan will remain open but will remain under a No Travel Advisory, unless conditions continue to deteriorate. Motorists should be alert to changing conditions.
I love the smell of freeway closures in February.
Smells like…
…real winter!
I noticed the outside temp sensor in my car doesn’t measure below minus 25.
Even the Japanese think we’re crazy to be outside today.
It’s -10 at noon.
Next week, though? Flirting with freezing.
An old piece of NoDak weather lore; “tough fall, easy spring”.
I may have made that up from whole cloth. And maybe not.
We’ll see, won’t we?
Background for those of you outside the Twin Cities; we’re expecting a winter storm. It’s actually the tail end of a blizzard that’s currently working over the Plains states).
So I was standing at the bus stop this morning. I recalled “we’re expecting snow”, remembering the radar from the morning weather that showed a big front bearing down on the Twin Cities.
I looked around; no snow at all in my immediate proximity.
“Hmm”.
I looked down the street. It seemed clear down as far as Snelling, maybe even Fairview (3/4 of a mile away) – but beyond that, down toward Prior, the snow was coming down heavily enough to make it hard to see past that street, about a mile away. I could see the front of my bus, just ahead of the snow.
And I watched as the snow caught the bus, changing the headlights from sharp glints to diffused washes of light as I watched.
Literally – the front came in that sharply and identifiably.
That was cool.
Figuratively and literally.
The snowy winter and wet autumn points to possible spring flooding in the Red River Valley this spring.
On Friday, the North Central River Forecast Center, which tracks flood potential in all or parts of nine states, forecast a 90 percent chance of major flooding for Fargo-Moorhead before May 1 and about a 45 percent chance for Grand Forks-East Grand Forks. The chance of a flood crest reaching the 1997 mark is about 7.5 percent in Fargo and 6 percent downstream in Grand Forks.That forecast is “not likely to change much for better unless we get really innocuous conditions,” said Steve Buan, a hydrologist for the forecast agency, which is part of the National Weather Service operation in Chanhassen. “We’ve gotten a really strong kick-start.”
The Twin Cities left erupted in reaction to this news.
“While the citizens of the Red River Valley can defend themselves from floods” said U of Minnesota victimization-studies professor Jacob Lawrence, “it’s important that the response be proportional. The locals should only respond by making the water wet”.
Others were less conciliatory. “Water was there before the people of Fargo were; they plopped their city into the middle of the Water homeland” said Meghan Jeffreys, spokesbeing of Victims Unanimous of Plymouth. “We express solidarity with the water”.
A pro-flood protest is planned for Wednesday at 8AM in front of the Federal Building in Minneapolis. Protesters are urged to wear water in solidarity.
John Candy (God rest his soul) probably couldn’t have anticipated that world events would transform his 1995 film Canadian Bacon into a docu-drama.
Among the most unthinkable scenarios for most Americans is the unthinkable idea that the United States could become the disunited or turn into divided states. Even though this union accumulated very slowly in the first place, and against all odds — in other words it was not inevitable — the fact that the USA will not always be as united, or at least united in the way it is now, is considered, well… unthinkable.
But as Juan Enriquez notes in his amazing PopTech talk, based on his book “The Untied States of America: Polarization, Fracturing, and Our Future”, no US president has ever died under the same flag that he was born under. That is, the borders of the United States has constantly shifted even in modern times. The last state was added in 1959 (after I was born!) and more could be added still. Americans are comfortable ADDING states, but it might not take much to subtract one. The outcome of the US Civil War has biased Americans to disbelieving in subtraction, but that might change.
In these scenarios, Minnesota becomes part of Canada, which of course we Minnesotans have known all along.
Right?
The upside: The Canadians will put an end to all this outdoor stadium foolishness.
HT Althouse
I’m ready.
I have a thirty-year-old snow blower that starts with one pull.
…a half bag of Starbucks.
…two four-wheel-drive cars.
…a shack full of firewood.
…a battery-powered AM radio to listen to Mitch & Ed.
…a scanner to listen to the mayhem.
…a drawer full of Ramen Noodles
….a lovely wife who happens to love shoveling snow (seriously).
…a forty-degree hill; three kids; three sleds.
…and my Christmas shopping is done.
Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.
…as long as it’s gonna be cold it might as well be white.
Enjoy.
Tell me.
Why do we live here again?
Professional Sports Teams
Low Taxes
Political Climate
I got nothin’
Zack over at MNPublius noticed a story that caught his attention over on the Strib:
Given that North Dakota has…:
…I thought “Yay. My home state is finally doing something to keep hapless Minnesotans from sabotaging the place, the way Californians have mangled Colorado”.
Alas, it was not to be: the Predators are supposed to keep Canadians, running from their own liberals’ power-grab, isolated on their side of the border.
Zack from MNPublius:
It’s about time the government did something about the swarms of North Dakota freeloaders taking advantage of their state’s proximity to ours.
We come here for the nightlife.
We stay to convert the place, in good time, to “East Dakota”.
All in good time.
Last night my son and I watched the Wild Phlatten Phoenix but the 4-0 shutout was not the highlight of the game.
This last election was marked by an unprecedented level of rancor, mudslinging and division. The war in Iraq was a source of much of the same until the media decided winning it was a non-event. The Coleman/Franken recount is bound to hold off the healing for at least another month.
Sitting in a packed and confined space with 18,000 Minnesotans however, it appeared there was one thing that can and did unify us all, and I found myself proud…and relieved somehow.
During a break in the action, the crowd cam picked up images of wide eyed kids, young couples huddling close and die-hard fans dressed in every from of Wild apparel.
…but when the camera caught four young soldiers, dressed in field camo, the image needed only to appear for a fraction of a second.
The crowd went wild. The camera lingered. The crowd sprung to their feet, cheering louder for those four young servants, our heroes, as loud as at any time during the game.
I was so proud, and so relieved that Minnesotans still feel this way, and seemingly unanimously, and for my son to witness it.
I am not a huge sports guy; the tickets were given to me by a client. But I can tell you that I am now a huge Wild fan fan.
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