Red River Rising Part 2

Flood and fire damaged downtown Grand Forks, one block from the Red River  May 1997

Heading to North Dakota, via St. Louis, Missouri 
Thursday May 16, 1997

 
We visit my mother in St. Louis on our way to the ‘Forks. She’s recovering from cancer surgery

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We also visit my brother Mark, a master carpenter, who will join us in Grand  Forks to rehab after we get the basement gutted.

As we neared the North Dakota border we became part of a huge convoy of power line and telecommunication trucks, lumber, plywood, Walmart and grocery chain semis, etc., all heading for the damaged cities. 

Grand Forks, ND Thursday May 16, 1997

We arrive in Grand Forks about 2 p.m.  Dreary and overcast. As we drive through the newer western part of the city, farthest from the river, we pass motels, a lumber yard, strip malls and Columbia Mall. They all look dirty, like there had been a terrible dust storm, caking everything with North Dakota gumbo, but as soon as we turn onto Columbia Road heading north we see bright blue porta-pottys at almost every corner, then by 17th Avenue South we see the trash--a long snaking curbside mountain range lining every street like a macabre highlight pen, outlining the whole city.  Welcome to Floodville.

We get behind Army Corps of Engineers dump trucks and pay loaders scooping up couches, sandbags, water heaters, bathtubs and baby beds. Finally we turn onto Fallcreek Court and see our house.  It has the ubiquitous trashy highlight but otherwise it looks oddly normal.

Two Grand Forks Herald’s spill out from the storm door, like we’ve just gone away for a holiday weekend.  Then the first evidence hits us--a city electrical inspection form stating that the power box has been replaced. We’d arranged with Duane, to pay $1200 for a 200 amp box, the flood rate.  We open the door and see a trail of black mud caked on the beige carpet to the basement door.  Our renter’s furniture is stacked neatly along the far wall of the living room.  We step in.  The basement door is closed.  Think B horror movies when the audience shouts, “No! Don’t open that door!”  We open the door, just like they always do in the movies, and down the stairs we go.

It’s dark, cold too, and there’s a heavy moldy smell. This is what a dying building feels like.  No boogy man leaps out to grab us, it’s more pernicious than that.  If the devil had an ice box this would be it.  We walk around in the half light.  At the south side of the house the tongue and groove maple floor is raised up, like a fun house floor, further disorienting us, we bounce on the bubbled floor, it’s a good foot higher in the middle than the rest of the flooring.  We say nothing.

We go back upstairs.  There’s a beeping outside, it’s the Red Cross Mobile Chow Van.  We line up with neighbors, they know we’re just back.  We receive meal packs and they tell us where to get clean-up kits, and free water.  We try eating the food but it’s awful.  There are Oreos and potato chips too, that the Red Cross woman calls comfort foods.  We're not used to eating that either.
                

Jim receiving Red Cross clean up kits, Grand Forks Armory parking lot

We go to the Piggly Wiggly grocery store and buy a dozen yogurts, bananas, apples and oranges.  Thank you! semi supply convoys! Next stop: the Armory for the Red Cross buckets and clean up kits plus a case of bottled water.  We don’t drink any city water for the next month, bottled water’s available free all over town.  We find a pay phone and call home.  We talk to each child.  Their voices are excited but calming, we step into their world, like slipping into a warm bath.  We put on our Mommy/Daddy/Grandma/Granddad hats as we ohh and ahhh over small victories and help arbitrate territorial disputes, plus getting the low down on who’s been to visit.

When we get home Jim goes downstairs and begins whacking out soggy drywall, which lightening up the basement, so it’s no longer so dark.  I cannot go back downstairs.  Instead I wet vac the mud trail 10 times over the next few days, boiling pots of water for each application.  I obsessively clean the upstairs until it reaches a hospital operating room sheen, anything, so I don’t have to go downstairs again.  It’s a completely schizophrenic house with a hyper clean upstairs, death’s door devastation downstairs.  Around 6 p.m. we change clothes and drive through Lincoln Park on our way downtown.  Those houses are like our basement but above ground, times 30 square blocks.  It looks like photos of bombed out Beirut.  Others are walking around taking photos too.  This journey through the carnage is something I repeat every day for the next month.

Grand Forks, ND Saturday May 17
The newspaper says there will be a big Missouri Cattleman’s B-B-Q at  South Forks Mall this evening, Salvation Army entrance.  Naomi and her daughter pick us up and we head over.  Grace is said for hundreds of people snaking around the mall in a long queue, manned by incredibly well-organized Missourians.  We see folks we haven’t seen in years.  An announcement squawks over the p.a. that the buses are now leaving for the airport for hundreds of Twin City volunteers Northwest Airlines flew up to help out, gratis.  

Continued in Red River Rising, Part 3