Disclaimer: I only shot photos while taking a break from the work!
It is so heartwarming to work beside people who have come from all over to help with the effort. Every single time I have stood in a sandbag line, there have been people from other communities working beside me...some from as far away as
Williston ND or Red Wing and Minneapolis MN. Last night...after working all day, we received a code red call to report to the main Dike 2 blocks from our house at 11pm. There were semi trucks lined up with 60,000 sandbags and I heard 130 people to build up the permanent earth dike from 6
th Ave to 13
th Ave South. It was like throwing frozen turkeys for hours. After we laid the bags, we had people stomp on them to break up the frozen sand. We had to leave...exhausted, at 3:15am, but only after the dike was safe for the night. Work continued until morning. At 3:30 am, I heard a caller on the radio that had just driven in to Fargo to help and was asking directions to our neighborhood so he could start working right away. Wow.
I should have brought my camera, it was an eerie, yet beautiful sight... the water was so black and the frost covered trees appeared white against it, reflecting the lights from the trucks and the streetlights.
images from Thursday...
Maija (in black) and her friend Erica are waist deep stamping down the sand inside the walls being put up around part of the water treatment facility.
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A line of volunteers sandbag alongside the bobcats that were loading sand into the temporary walls.
Maija carries sand bags to be stacked on the pallets in the Dome.
This was the massive sand bag making effort going on at the
FargoDome. There was a sea of people churning out bags to get to the front lines.
At the water treatment facility near our house, they erected steel and tarp walls filled with sand as the many volunteers sandbagged beside them.
A bus load of students from Red Wing Minnesota came before the sun rose to work alongside Fargo residents to protect the water treatment plant on 13
th Ave South adjacent to the river.
A Red Wing Minnesota student
volunteer is covered with dirt from hours of sandbagging.
Friend and neighbor Dan Gordon works in the sandbag line a block from his home.
A thick layer of dust covered everything in the
FargoDome, after days of making sandbags there. There was a haze in the air and the smell of
exhaust was thick from the trucks lined up on the football field either dumping sand or hauling sandbags out.
My husband Greg passes finished sandbags to be stacked on pallets.
Each pile of sand was surrounded by people sitting on buckets holding the bags open to be filled with sand. Behind them was another circle of people tying the bags with metal twist ties.
Volunteers stack pallets amid thousands of sandbags.
A backhoe sits near an enormous pit on the grounds of Discovery Middle School. Several south side school grounds provided dirt used to build earth dikes. The 3 story, 1000 student school behind the backhoe, is completely blocked from view by the heavy snow.
National Guardsman at a security check point shows bags of cookies delivered by a resident minutes before. The others said they are stuffed from all the food people are bringing!
North Dakota State University fans go crazy after a three-point basket by the Bison against Kansas Friday during the NCAA tournament at the Metrodome in Minneapolis. The Bison lost to Kansas 84-74.David Samson / The Forum
Paige bridal shower in black & turquoise-
