Jay Richards

We had a couple inches of fresh snow yesterday and I groomed it out. Wasn't pretty at times having to blast through some slush and water but all turned out okay and nice skiing a few hours later. Close to 3" more during the night. Would of groomed it out but had plans to go up to Moorhead to help in sand bagging efforts so went out for a quick ski instead of grooming. If I can ski locally on my birthday, I am a happy man.




Can't recall skiing in this much fresh snow this year since I am usually grooming it out. Went hard for a hour, good workout skiing in the fresh and was a winter wonderland. Really, really nice skiing.


We loaded up a bunch of granola bars and some cases of hot chocolate and headed west. First stop was dropping these items off at Nemzek hall at Moorhead State Univ after hearing on radio they needed food etc. for volunteers and they were also filling up sand bags.


Didn't really have a plan after that other than wanted to go help build some dikes. Figure best not to go into Fargo since most bridges were closed and heard later that it was taking 2.5hrs to get from downtown Fargo to Moorhead in the afternoon. Also didn't want to wait in line for a bus and have down time so figured we could find something on our own. Originally was going to go to north Moorhead but Steve Wenzel (check out his blog if you haven't done so already, probably filling sand bags all night at the Fargodome) said that was a war zone so I drove straight from MSU towards the river and figure there would be plenty of work to do. Sure enough we found a big line but the bags were in short supply and didn't want to sit around waiting so we walked along near the river. Saw a bunch of trucks hauling bags so followed the trucks and found a house with just a handful of people and a big pile of sand bags. They had a dike atround the house good for 40ft but recent forecasts said they should go to 43 so we pretty much helped build the entire dike up to 43.



This dike had a bit of seeping at the bottom and is holding back a lot of weight.
View from back of the house we were working on. The occupants of these homes with water around said forget it and left. The one garage they spray painted Moorhead so if it floats away, the folks downstream will know where it came from.
Bikes thrown on top of garage.



Sticks marking levels to build dikes up to. When we left, the water was already above the "s".

Getting ready to pull the poly over.
Bags on top to keep poly in place.

Woodlawn park totally under water. When I went to school at Concordia, I spent a lot of hours skiing the short classic loop they would groom here. I also spent a lot of hours riding the snow piles that they would dump in the park. In the spring they would melt down and the sand etc. would be just like Moab slickrock. Jonell pointed out our first date, pretty much 18 years ago, was near Woodlawn and river was not flooding and unusually warm temps made for a nice night on the rivers edge.

Don't like to voice political views here but just have to say a bit disappointed with Obama a few days ago, saying this is a result of global warming and wake up call and nothing about encouraging the folks etc. of Fargo/Moorhead in the fight. If I remember correctly, FM experienced one of the coldest winters on record. The record flood was in 1897 and not a result of global warming. Record moisture in the Fall, record moisture in the month of March and rapid warmup past few weeks, contributing to this flood. Record keeping does not go back far enough to say this is a result of global warming. Thoughts and prayers to everyone involved with the flood. Posted more photos on Maplelag website.