Things begin to look up along Red River
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Volunteers are working throughout Eastern North Dakota and Western Minnesota to fortify their defense against flooding. And their efforts appear to be paying off.
Some in the town of Sabin -- about 15 miles southwest of Fargo -- had to navigate their farms in canoes.
In Norman County, Minnesota, floodwaters have closed two highways in the Ada area, but officials say things could be worse.
In Fargo, Mayor Bruce says things "look better" than they did on Friday.
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Furness says work on emergency dikes is progressing, with 160,000 sandbags already filled and another 50,000 ordered. He believes the city will be ready when the river is expected to crest on Tuesday.
Furness says there were concerns that rising river levels would create problems for the city's wastewater treatment plant, causing sewage backups into homes. But he says the treatment plant is under control.
"It has recovered completely. It's processing all the flow that goes to the plant," he said. "Itis operating at over capacity, but that's to be expected in a flood situation like this. So right now there's no backing-up in the system, no backing-up of wastewater into the system. There's no alerts or alarms on the lift stations and there's no diversion going into the river directly."
Furness says residents no longer are being asked to conserve water. Furness thinks the situation is beginning to stabilize.
In Breckenridge Mayor Cliff Barth says the Red River crested in his community early Saturday. The city has been building emergency dikes along the river for protection.
Barth says the city is still closely monitoring the situation. He's not ready to relax yet, but says the river is slowly receding and that's good news.
"It got up to about 16 feet, which was a foot-and- a-half lower than the final levee crest prediction and we're going to get some rain tonight and tomorrow, but by that time I'm hoping the river will have dropped some more and we should be in good shape," he said.
Breckenridge is upstream of Fargo and Moorhead.
(The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
