What We Talk About When We Talk About Flooding

I don’t like network news, so I don’t watch it. I get everything I need from NPR and 99.9% of the time I don’t miss a thing. However, there have been so many natural disasters recently, that I do miss the visceral effect of really comprehending what it means when the man on the radio says “flood” or “tsunami.” One recent example of this is the horrific flooding in, of all places, Minot, North Dakota. A friend of mine grew up 90 minutes away, and this town was the closest place for her family to go shopping and pick up supplies. This means that Minot flooding not only impacts the town itself, but all the communities within in a 2 hour radius.

This friend forwarded on some links that really drove the disaster home. Check out this article from Minot resident and click here for photos of the town under water.

What’s incredible is that given the flatness of the terrain, the water is not planned to recede for quite some time, so the 10,000 people that were driven out of their homes will be mobile for the forseeable future. I can’t even imagine what that must be like. To give you some idea, North Dakota's National Guard estimates that it will will cost $90 million or more to repair roads, parks and other public works from damage.