Capitol Words a project of the Sunlight Foundation

Sen. Kent Conrad

Mr. President, I rise on a matter of personal privilege to talk about what is going on in my State. I was just there this past Friday morning and through the weekend. As the country knows, we are facing record floods across the entire State of North Dakota. These are crests we have never seen before on river after river in North Dakota. The great Missouri was bogged down with ice dams and nearly flooded the capital city last week, but that was prevented by a demolition team that came in and set charges and blew a channel in the ice.

I was in Fargo, ND, on Friday and Saturday and Sunday--which everyone has been watching--and it is truly inspirational to see what is happening there. It is a town of 90,000, and the mayor told us yesterday that of those 90,000 people, they have 80,000 volunteers because everybody knows that everything is on the line. You go into the FARGODOME, which is a giant sports facility where NDSU plays its games, and they have thousands of volunteers, with rock music blaring. They made 3 million sandbags in 7 days. Think about that--3 million sandbags in 7 days, working 24 hours a day, around the clock. They are fully staffed around the clock, and they are doing everything that is humanly possible to save that city.

This was the headline yesterday in the Fargo Forum: ``Holding Steady.'' It shows a picture of National Guardsmen and the Coast Guard rescuing people, and you can see these massive ice chunks and the flood.

Today, we got the news that we can now anticipate another major winter storm beginning tonight, with 6, 7, or 8 inches of snow. Of greater concern, however, are the higher winds because we have miles and miles of dike--at least 38 miles of main dike. These dikes, of course, for the most part are clay dikes, and in many places those are topped over with sandbags to raise the level. Because the weather service raised the forecast level right at the end on us, we had to build the dikes up even further.

While the good news is that the river is dropping slightly--from just under 41 feet to now just over 39 feet--we know there is a wall of water headed for that river.

There is a most incredible snow wall--three times normal--out in the watershed, and all that water is headed for this river. So while we are cautiously optimistic, we all know the dikes can breach. That happened the night before last in the early hours, and we lost an entire high school campus in the middle of the night. The good thing is the contingency dikes that have been built right behind the main dikes held--and I can tell you it is an impressive site.

Remember, this river is 22 feet above flood stage. So these massive dikes that have been built all along the river, and then these contingency dikes behind them, are in preparation for a breach.

I attended early morning meetings with the city leadership. They have this organized. They have rapid strike teams, rapid response teams, they have 24-hour patrols trying to make certain the dikes don't breach, that they are not seeping. If they get a report, the report goes in, and they have four different types of rapid response teams ready to go to fill the breach. If there were ever a case of an extraordinary outpouring, this is it.

This is a picture of what I was talking about in the FARGODOME. Look at this. This is thousands and thousands of people with sand, filling bags. This is what you see throughout that facility. This is just a small part of it. It is an absolute beehive of human activity working to defend that town and to save their homes.

So far we have been remarkably successful. There has been tragedy--2 deaths, 50 injuries as of yesterday. But this has so far averted a much bigger crisis.

This is a picture of a home out in the county. You can see they have diking around that home, and you can see there is not much freeboard there. We are hoping it holds.

This is another picture that shows response of our National Guard. This is one of the rapid response teams that moved to fill a place where the levee needed to be built up. There was some seepage. So this is one of the rapid response teams that has moved in to try to prevent that dike from breaching. These guys have been absolutely heroic.

One of the things that has been interesting, there is a great rivalry between the University of North Dakota and North Dakota State. North Dakota State is in Fargo; UND is in Grand Forks. In 1997, the great flood hit Grand Forks. So this year all the sports teams from UND are down at NDSU with their rivals working together to defend these dikes.

This is a picture from yesterday. That is a 1-ton sandbag being lifted by a helicopter. They are going to put it in place to try to divert the flow of the river. The river has tremendous force behind it. Of course that force is hitting the dikes. In order to divert at a vulnerable position, yesterday they dropped about a dozen of these 1-ton sandbags to change the direction of the river.

This is a picture of what you can see all throughout Fargo, ND. They have Neighborhood Watch groups to patrol to make sure there is no seepage. If there is a place that needs to be built up, they put out a call and people turn up just like this. You can see hundreds of people here working to sandbag to try to defend their homes and defend their neighborhoods.

The thing that has kind of escaped the attention of the national media but which is so striking is, this flood threat is all across North Dakota, from the far western part of the State all across to eastern North Dakota and the Red River Valley. The Red River Valley gets most of the attention, but we landed in Valley City on Friday and in Valley City--no, this was on Saturday--the snow around the airport was 10 feet high. That is the Cheyenne River Valley. The Cheyenne River Valley will crest later than the Red. But they are anticipating record crest levels.

Again, we went to a place where they have the Winter Show, in Valley City, ND. It is a big structure. There are hundreds of volunteers there working around the clock. This is from my hometown, the Bismarck Tribune, Bismarck, ND, with the headline, simply ``Battered,'' ``Area Hit Hard by a 1-2 Punch.'' That was flooding and a blizzard; 12 to 18 inches of snow hit my hometown last week.

Last night we got another major winter storm. I am told more than 10 inches of snow hit last night. We were faced with an immediate threat of flooding.

Here you can see two guys wading. This is ice. They have broken through the ice in their hip waders, and this is all water. They are going to check on the home of a couple to make sure they are safe.

This is the kind of flooding that was in my hometown. Here is a canoe, people going from one house to another in a canoe.

It is hard to fully appreciate the magnitude of this. We have had massive snowfall in places in the State, three times average, of course leading to these record floods. We have never seen the Red River at this height before in recorded history. Never before in recorded history has it been this high.

I want to say to people who are watching, it is inspirational to see these communities come together, to work together in an all-out effort to save their homes, to save their communities. I could not be more proud of the people of North Dakota. Boy, faced with threat, they have absolutely demonstrated what I think are heroic qualities.

I was pleased the President acknowledged this in his weekend address and talked about what this demonstrates about the human spirit. Honestly, you have to be there to fully appreciate what I am talking about.

We are thinking about our friends and neighbors and families back home, wishing them the very best as this flood fight continues. The great news is the river is going down, at least the Red is going down. But we have to contend with this major winter storm that is going to hit tonight, and we also have to contend with something nobody can predict--how fast things will warm up. If it warms up too fast that water out there is going to head for the river. We know we ought to keep up our guard, and that is what everybody intends to do.

I also want to acknowledge the local leadership: Mayor Walaker, Deputy Mayor Tim Mahoney--what outstanding leadership they are providing in that community. These guys are not working any 8-hour days. It is round the clock and it could not be better. They are out there urging their citizenry on. They have said: If we go down, we are going to go down swinging.

I tell you, I don't think they are going to go down. I think they are going to win.