Minot, North Dakota Flooding: Thousands Flee As Officials Warn City Could Be Under Water Soon (VIDEO)

Residents still remaining in Minot, North Dakota rushed to pack up their belongings and leave town Wednesday as sirens wailed throughout the city, a warning of what is expected to be the worst flooding the city has seen in over 40 years.

The Souris River -- heavy with intense snowmelt and rain -- overtopped levees 5 hours ahead of an evacuation deadline, the AP reports. Those still remaining of the 11,000 in the Minot evacuation zone were prompted to leave their homes and head for higher ground immediately.

From the AP:

The resulting deluge is expected to dwarf a historic flood of 1969, when the Souris reached 1,555.4 feet above sea level. The river is expected to hit nearly 1,563 feet this weekend – eventually topping the historical record of 1,558 feet set in 1881.

Residents in Minot were told to evacuate earlier this month before the river hit 1,554.1 feet. They were later allowed to return, but were warned to be prepared for the possibility of another evacuation.

According to Reuters, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers plans to increase releases from the Lake Darling Dam to 15,000 cubic feet per second on Thursday, and officials have said flood defenses in Minot were rated to around 9,500 cubic feet per second.

Amtrak has temporarily disabled services in Minot and other areas in North Dakota due to the flooding.

"There will be a lot of water in the city," North Dakota Governor Jack Dalrymple told reporters.

WATCH:

Comments

[socalcde]

11:06 AM on 06/24/2011

They had flooding worse than this only 40 years ago?

[AntiClast]

09:37 AM on 06/24/2011

This was caused by all those illegal Canadians sneaking over the border bringing water.

Nothing to do with global warming, don't mention that.

[took4ever]

09:03 PM on 06/23/2011

I lived in North Dakota, ran a business and did a good deal of research to know what is going on in North Dakota.

After the historic floods of the last century, North Dakota was awarded billions of dollars in FEMA Funds to re-build and build dikes to stave off future disasters. Grand Forks got over 2 billion dollars alone. The money was metered out to research and other non-productive accounts so that a number of people got wealthy. Do you see any dikes in Grand Forks (or Minot or any other North Dakota flood area? NO). Wait! East Grand Forks (Minnesota--right across the river from North Dakota) built dikes and flood prevention. And they are under severe criticism by North Dakota (because they actually DID SOMETHING ABOUT THEIR PROBLEM). The people of Grand Forks are bitter because ... "now all the flood waters will come our way." Hehehehehe.

These people are not some of the smartest people on the planet compounded by in-breeding because no one new with half a brain would move there.

I can tell you horror stories of North Dakota - they do not deserve sympathy (except sympathy for not doing anything about their future when they had the money and resources to do it). They have squandered their opportunities ... greed took priority)

Don't be fooled by the situation that they have landed themselves into because of inaction and pilfering large amounts of government money.

'Take it from someone who knows.

[cappy2]

04:45 PM on 06/23/2011

For those of you that constantly have to jam your political bias down everyoue's throat please spend a few minutes to enlighten yourself about North Dakota before shooting your mouth off. ND.s Senators and Congressmen have been Democrats for over 20-30 years. In the last 50 years it has had 3 State Governors so we are not 100% red state. Regardless of your political beliefs people from both parties are going to get wet. It has no bearing here.
Many cities started close to the rivers during the settlement of America as rivers were the highways and the sources of food and shelter material. Minot is no different,starting in the valley next to the river and expanding upwards and outwards along the valley banks. The 1/4 of the city being flooded is at the very bottom ov the valley. Send them your prayers and help in any way you can. Remember we are all AMERICANS!!

[NorthWoodsVoice]

07:44 AM on 06/24/2011

"Remember we are all AMERICANS!­! "

Wait, I thought only Tea Partiers were real Americans. This is so confusing!

[Ironquill]

09:40 AM on 06/24/2011

In otherwords you are a Republican and don't live at the very bottom of the valley. Unhuh.

[tanbiker]

03:38 PM on 06/23/2011

Glub, glub, glub. Gurgle, gurgle.

[Denise Betters]

03:01 PM on 06/23/2011

Did Pat Robertson already explain the rationale
for this flooding i.e. pacts with the devil?

[bigelow2317]

02:36 PM on 06/23/2011

seems to be the year of the natural disaster. but wouldn't that play into the huge story lurking off in the distance say around 12-21-2012? Doesn't the news media want as many disasters and wars and loss of life as they can get for ratings?
Important Point! That town is flooding at levels not seen since 1881. Some of the homes will need to be rebuilt. They might need help. Call the Red Cross if you can help. The rest is stupid fluff designed by the media to make the media more important in the medias eye!!

[Craig Meyer]

01:35 PM on 06/23/2011

Where's FEMA, the looters and whiners and such? Too far out of mainstream America to be worthy I guess. I've never lived in Minot but have been there a few times. Good solid, friendly people always willing to lend a hand when needed. I guess they will survive because they help each other no matter what.

I was born in in N.D. and I'm proud of it.

[Averry]

01:21 PM on 06/23/2011

I've live in Minot for all of my short 23 years of life. My family and I are safe, and our place of employment and house are safely located out of the evacuation zones.

It's a bummer to see many of you take harsh judgement on our situation. On the political side...it's hard to expect people of a different location and social-economic situation different than yours to make the same voting decisions that you do. Just as I would never expect somebody of a different american sub culture to vote exactly the same as you do. North Dakota simply doesn't have the same problems as other areas so I don't see how anyone can just EXPECT them to make emotional even logical based voting decisions based on aspects that just don't sync with their culture or conditions.

North Dakota is very flat, but Minot is essentially a sort of bowl....with one big hill on the north, and one big hill on the south, and the river cuts right through the middle.

Over the past 40 years there have been numerous actions taken to prevent flooding, but there has been a near perfect storm of conditions as well has the mishandling of the reservoirs that has created this situation.

[ifsos]

02:06 PM on 06/23/2011

It is easy for outsiders to judge what they don't live. I will pray for everyone there to be safe. That is what I can do. No matter how I vote or what else I think or how my economic situation is. I hope it does not get as bad as they expect and the people continue to pull together to get through it all.

[ltlboofran]

03:16 PM on 06/23/2011

God Bless you and your family and all the others. This has been a terrible year for weather, over yet? Who knows. All we can do is send dollars to the red cross and help a fellow american.

[Bernice Leo]

12:59 PM on 06/23/2011

i have a question. why can't they build feeder pipes to the aquifirs in nevada and other places where the levels have dropped so low? they could channel that flood water into the aquifirs and replenish those supplies and also take a lot of the flood waters out of the equation for those towns. we're wasting a precious asset there.

[Averry]

01:37 PM on 06/23/2011

I can assure you we would love to send you our water...and after all...if we can pipe oil where ever it needs to go......we can sure pipe water.

Although I don't think you'd want river water pumped directly into aquafirs.

[Candace Ritchie]

02:03 PM on 06/23/2011

They won't because they can't justify spending that much money on such "infrequent" flooding. Remember, to them it's all about the money. The citizens are farther down on the priority list. My question is this....will they build back in this same area after all of the water runs off?

[Averry]

02:51 PM on 06/23/2011

Most of the houses from the flood of '69 are actually still there with people living in them. Minot has been a bit of a boom town over the past 3 years with a lot of growth and development. Property values have skyrocketed and I expect that some will see it as a worth the financial risk.

[drny626]

12:54 PM on 06/23/2011

Why in the world do people to chose live in flood prone areas? I mean any community can see a little flooding, but when there is a chance of a whole town being submerged under 20ft of water you should have you head examined if you want to live in an area like that. There are obviously some parts of this country we should not inhabit and nature is reminding us of this every day.

[ltlboofran]

03:20 PM on 06/23/2011

Obviously you have no realization that at any time, any day, any hour, any year it can flood, have a tornado, hurricane, tsunami, fire, blizzard, avalanche, mud slide and any I have missed. So get over it. You need your head examined. Incedently, Where do you live?

[socalcde]

11:12 AM on 06/24/2011

Then why is insurance more expensive for people in flood prone areas?

[drdonm]

06:21 PM on 06/23/2011

For the same reason that some folks build their homes, retirement cottages, what ever they want to call it, on the coast line where one major storm (Hurricane on the east coast) will swamp and wash away that $500,000 - $1m home, and then later rebuild it again... BECAUSE they want to; They love the view; they love where they are at and find that the danger of being wiped out to a once in a possible lifetime flood or storm is worth the chance...

[nharmone]

12:39 PM on 06/23/2011

It might be historic to us because we haven't been on this planet for very long. To mother nature its just another day. But for reasons beyond logic, we will build it back just to watch it get knocked down again in some future "historic flood".

[relaford]

01:15 PM on 06/23/2011

Yes, they will rebuild, and it will flood again someday, but there are very few places on the planet where some sort of natural disaster doesn't occur-----if it's not flooding it's earthquakes, wild fires, volcanoes, hurricanes, tornadoes, ice & snow storms, tsunamis, or typhoons, etc. You just have to pick which disaster you're willing to live with.

[Averry]

01:28 PM on 06/23/2011

It's been 40 years since it flooded in Minot....and it took basically 150 year record snow fall to do so....and for crying out loud, North Dakota is the 2nd least populated state in America...just how sparsely populated do you expect us to get?

[Averry]

01:35 PM on 06/23/2011

Most of the houses located in the flood zone are 70-100 years old. And all of them survived the flood of 69.

[catspaj]

12:37 PM on 06/23/2011

What about the Damtrak, which has always gone through there?

[Averry]

02:07 PM on 06/23/2011

It's shut down actually.

[friendofbear]

11:41 AM on 06/23/2011

I see a fix for Minot, but it could not be in time for this flood. The Souris splits off just north of town, and that branch flows SW and under the 117 ft high Gassman Coulee Tressle. I believe a 50 ft dirt levee, 3000 ft long, could divert most of the rivers rage out to open farmland that turns into miles of marsh. They would have to ramp the 52/2 over it, and put in a standpipe to allow the Souris to have a normal flow through it. 2 miles North of Minot is a smaller town called Burlington. It looks like they will take the initial brunt force of this first. They appear to also have a similar opportunity to divert water. In both cases though, it would be bad news for a several dozen farmhouses.

[septsong]

11:36 AM on 06/23/2011

fools.. nature will reclaim what is hers... just the nature of it all.. give it time..She will have her way..