Flood Help!

Guys, we've got a major problem up here! Eastern Minnesota, North Dakota and my Province are all in the Midwest plains and the Red River Valley.

I know this isn't the right thread, but I wanted to get some attention. You can kick my butt later, Ok?

Back in 1997, Intel and AMD had their silicone chip plants operating in Taiwan. Taiwan had one of its worst droughts ever, and no rain. The US Air Force sent planes over and seeded the humid air (barely any clouds) to get some rainfall and restore some balance to the water system.

Is there a way to do the REVERSE?

Right now, they're saying that the Rivers (Miississippi and Red River and Devil's Lake - central ND) could crest by March 28. 3 to 4 weeks ahead of normal.

Remember the limerick March Winds, April Showers, bring forth May Flowers? We haven't had enough wind to dry off the land, the winter has been overly wet and snowy in ND, and all their water flows North. ND has released their Flood Warnings already for March 28. We don't need our farmers stumped in this Economic Crisis for too long, as well. There's got to be a way to dissipate the clouds somewhat and reduce the impact. ND is expecting 1.5 inches of rainfall this weekend, and April is a rain barrel. That's why our distastrous 1997 Flood of the Century crested on May 1st. Here they are moving that up to March 28, a month earlier.

Anyone know of links or research or any science on a solution?

This flooding covers everything from Fargo ND up past my city for another 100 miles along the Red.
Rainy forecast raises flood concerns along Red River

Provincial officials issue standby orders in Manitoba

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/manitoba/story/2009/03/20/mb-flooding-fargo.html

 

Fargo's Flood warning page

Just found the Fargo ND site about their flood warnings. This week is all rain and snow from tonight until Friday, crap!

At least the old barn cars are further North and West of this.

http://www.ndsu.nodak.edu/fargoflood/

 

Damn, Stormy...I really feel for you. I don't know a THING about weather control but if there were any way I would think it would have been implemented in other flood zones. Lay in the sand bags?

 

I'm relatively OK. We're about 1.5 miles from the river and about 100 feet above it. It has gotten close back in the 1950 flood (within 200 feet) of my block. But when you see the area (like 400 square miles), you know its gonna be really hard on thousands of families.

I just think they haven't tried hard enough. You can't change wind patterns, but you can change the temperature of the humidity. I don't know if that's like spraying dry-ice chips into the clouds to cool them or modifying the density of the dry-ice chips (which is formed with a recombinant of CO2 (that nasty gas emission could be useful). Farmland produces 24% of our CO2 emissions in the Prairies. Dry Ice has a formula of some multipier of CO, but maybe there's some other method.

Thanks for thinking about it. I know there's a few scientist members here. We got into it in the Fuel Economy thread. Hopefully they come by and chime in.

 

Not to sound like an ahole. I do feel for the families caught in a flood,but if people build a house in a flood plain I guess they should expect this once in a while. No different than living on a fault line or the base of a volcano.

 

I feel for ya Stormin, atleast you only live in a flood area, not like the people in Cali who choose to live in Earthquake, Mudslides and Forest Fire zones. Our worst natural dilemas here are snow and swerving to miss the cow chit on the road from all the farmers leaky chitspreaders and the roadapples from the Amish horses. Good luck buddy, if ya need a friend to help come pail the water out of your basement, just ask, I will work for Fairmont Wagons

 

There goes the "Build It and they will come" concept. Wiinnipeg's original native name means 3 Rivers. The Seine and Assinniboine come from the West of us, but the Red is the real stickler. I don't disagrre with you on that point, but the Red River valley is the most fertile.

The downside is that according to Ice Age history it was where the big glaciers withdrew from to the Arctic. Since canoes were the mode of transport 400 years ago, it was fine for early colonials. Building a city like ours isn't logical, there's two others to the West that would have been higher and drier. I guess we just keep out-foxing ourselves.

Not too well known, but the Red River Valley is the only place on the planet with no Epi-centres. ZERO chance of an Earthquake. Go 150 miles on either side, and they get tremors up to 4.3 on the Richter scale.

So far, the forecasters are wrong. The rain for today didn't happen, and they pushed tomorrow's down by half and later in the day. Monday's is reduced also. Crossing our fingers and toes.

 

I feel your pain Normie! Last year our whole town was shut-down, people's homes were flooded, I'm on a high hill and our house was okay, but I had to drive through water up to my center hubs to get to town and got stopped by national guard at the Wisconsin River bridge every day. The military ducks were up and down our road too and we actually had cars trying to get through flooded main roads such as 16, 51, and 33 only to find themselves past the roof in water. These floods are really somethin.

They're already giving out warnings to buy flood insurance on the radio and in the papers. It was a wet one and I guess we'll just see how things play out. Best of luck to you up there!!

 

Thanks CE. We've got rain pouring like crazy, but the wind is doing its best to dry up. If it doesn't freeze, we might reduce the damage. It might snow by next Wednesday, but we'll have more info all this week and for the next 3 weeks. The Fargo NDSU guy in-charge wrote back and told me he liked to see that someone was thinking outside the box. Spraying the clouds to dissipate them. Hope they've got some whiz-kids on staff.

 

Well, I hope that the winds keep up for ya, it's been very windy and rainy here and it's supposed to be all week. I'll take some extra rain for ya and you can have the wind, just so long as the Wisconsin River don't start to crest, I'm okay!

 

I apologize in advance for not really having anything helpful to add. I just wish you and your state the best. You will be in my prayers.

 

Thanks. I'm just North of it in Canada, but Fargo has already hit higher than the Crest level of 40'. Two of our smaller border towns have declared a State of Emergency. 6 weeks ahead of the normal Cresting date, and we've still got April's Showers to come. It's rain and 10 inches of snow between last nite and Thursday. They're closing some roads already.

Hope they think out of the box and find a way to calm Mother Nature down.

 

Well, we got more flood warnings today, it's been raining since yesterday and ain't supposed to stop until the end of the week...maybe. It's supposed to start snowing again this weekend. First a record snowfall, now this, I guess there's never been a more literal time to say 'when it rains, it pours!'

 

Boy is the Fat Lady singing or what! March 9, I took pictures showing that my driveway was almost all melted. Last evening? 20 INCH Snow Drifts from 8 Inches of snow in 36 hours! Then back to -20C (-9F) for 3 days, when we're supposed to be at +3C (37F). One brutal season after another. The Ice broke North of the City and created a jam in the Red River, evacuating up to 185 homes in a fairly new suburb. They thought they were high enough.

 

I'm sorry to hear that normie, that's terrible news! I hope that you and yours are safe!