Flood Operations Update for 29 March 2009

The waters crested at Fargo yesterday at 41 feet. Work continues to reinforce levies and Civil Air Patrol continues operations. We have 2 summaries of yesterday's activity from North Dakota:

Lt Col Troy Krabbenhoft, North Dakota Wing PAO Reporting From the Casselton Base

We are at it again. Its March 28^th and it is day 6 of the flood fight...

Today from the new command post in Casselton more missions are being flown, and ground troops are seeking their next location to be saved. 

The Red Cross has determined that their own facility now needs a contingency dike around their building so they can still support the town and local communities. 

This is another vital piece of infrastructure to the city of Fargo. 

3 aircraft are going to be launched

A crew of 3- Flying the Red River and taking pics - Maj Chad Smith, Col Walt Vollmers and Maj Chad Derby

A crew of 3- Flying tributaries into the Red River - Col Columbe, 1st Lt John Nyberg and 1st Lt Steve Vivian

A crew of 3- Flying Sheyenne from Valley City to Lisbon- Maj John Steiner, Lt Col Erik Ludlow, 1st Lt Paul Engstrom. 

At this time the majority of the dikes are built-up and the tempo switches to dike protection/reinforcement by the City of Fargo and National Guard troops. 

The dike duties are dangerous due to the river being help back from some dikes that are up to 15 feet tall.  With a breach of a dike holding back that much depth of water it makes for a very dangerous mission that we don't want our cadets to be subjected to.  

More to follow….

 

Major Bill Kay, North Dakota Wing Operations Officer

To date, we have flown 31.2 hours gathering intelligence for DES and county emergency managers.  This does not include an additional 4.4 hours of ferry time to get aircraft to Bismarck for maintenance.  
 

Those hours were flown by 5 ND aircraft and 1 aircraft from SD.  SD also provided additional crew and mission staff. 

Their assistance is greatly appreciated.

The maintenance facility in Bismarck (Aircraft Maintenance Services) will complete an oil change and a 100 hour inspection on two different aircraft overnight allowing us to put them back in service tomorrow.  

Due to the forecast bad weather coming Sunday or Monday, the staff and aircraft in Casselton will re-deploy to our main location at the Fargo Airport. 

This will happen tomorrow (Sunday) afternoon. 

We need to make sure that our aircraft are in a hanger to be able to respond, if needed, on Monday. 

The SD aircraft and personnel will go home Sunday afternoon.

We will continue to provide aerial imagery to the State as the water moves north toward Canada. 

I do not expect a total stand-down of ND forces for at least one to two more weeks.

Minnesota and South Dakota Wings are currently on stand-by.

Comments:

Weather reports indicate that a blizzard is approaching the area and that may have an impact on our operations.

I received a very interesting e-mail from 2d Lt Alan Trombley of Minnesota Wing.

It’s a short first hand account of his and his son’s involvement in sandbagging operations. It and a few of his pictures are posted on the website at the link below:

Link:  http://www.ncrpao.org/specials/2009_floods/trombley_20090329.htm

There are also images posted from Yesterday’s flight operations and the Casselton Mission Base. They are linked below:

Casselton Mission Base: http://www.ncrpao.org/specials/2009_floods/casselton.htm

Aerial Imaging – Hickson, ND
http://www.ncrpao.org/specials/2009_floods/20090329_hickson.htm

Aerial Imaging – James River
http://www.ncrpao.org/specials/2009_floods/20090329_jamesriver.htm

Aerial Imaging – Pembina, ND
http://www.ncrpao.org/specials/2009_floods/pembina_20090329.htm

Aerial Imaging – Sheyenne, ND
http://www.ncrpao.org/specials/2009_floods/sheyenne_20090328.htm