Base Pays Back Trust
Two years ago, the city spent $100,000 in taxpayer dollars to lobby for keeping the Grand Forks Air Force Base open.
The base has more than paid back the flood-ravaged city.
Some 3,400 evacuees have found shelter on the base since the Red River inundated most of the city.
“The Air Force people are very helpful. They are doing a super job, and I really feel grateful to them,” said Jiarong Fu, who teaches economics at the University of North Dakota. He has been at the base for a week with his wife and two young daughters.
Twenty-fours a day, seven days a week, base personnel have been providing hope and help, sometimes at their own expense.
That effort began even as the Red River was swallowing the homes of 700 Air Force families living off the base, many of whom didn’t have time to tend to their own losses.
The base, 13 miles west of Grand Forks, has the only medical operation left in the city. The base commissary and store also were opened to civilians and its youth center opened to hundreds of children who had nowhere to play.
Mayor Pat Owens, among the leaders in the fight to keep the base from being closed by military budget cutbacks, is now living there, along with her father, her husband and son.
“They’ve helped us in every way that you can possibly imagine,” Owens said. “They’ve opened their hearts out there to this community. They came to us in a time where we couldn’t have managed without them.”
Damage may reach $775 million
Property damage caused by the Flood of 1997 may add up to a staggering $775 million in Grand Forks and East Grand Forks.
The enormity of that Federal Reserve Bank estimate explains why local, state and federal officials are rushing to create disaster relief programs.
House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., visited residents of Grand Forks and East Grand Forks on Friday so he could pledge the federal government’s support for the rebuilding effort.
The speaker endorsed relief measures that will help people hang on to their homes and businesses, but he’s skeptical about handing out grants.
Gingrich told Grand Forks leaders Friday night that local people should make many of the decisions about how to spend federal aid.
“This is a community of hard-working, frugal, common-sense people,” Gingrich said, “Let you make practical, common-sense decisions and audit afterward.”
Congress probably will approve flood aid within the next few weeks.
United Way opens warehouse
United Way of Grand Forks, East Grand Forks and the area has secured warehouse space for goods pouring in from all over the country for flood victims.
“We are getting literally semi-truck loads of canned goods, cleaning supplies, diapers, baby formula, new clothing and office supplies to help people and businesses get back up to speed,” said Pat Berger, United Way president, who is operating from the branch in Allegheny County, Pa. Allegheny County loaned Berger an office, “but before they put me in it they asked, “Do you mind, it overlooks a river?’ I said no,” she said. “It was a river that had not flooded, but they were sensitive to that issue.”
A disaster’s tally
A look at flooding in the Red River Valley:
Evacuations: Estimated 80,000 people, including 47,500 of 50,000 residents of Grand Forks.
Schools: Thousands of displaced children enrolling in schools elsewhere in North Dakota and Minnesota.
Deaths: Five people died of flood-related causes in northern Plains and in Canada.
Land: Area is so flat that locals say any heavy precipitation is like pouring water on a table top. Water spreads out, creating a shallow lake up to 25 miles wide, even wider where the flood joins existing pools of standing water.
What’s next: Floodwater threatens smaller communities near the Canadian border and in Canada, where some 17,000 people have been evacuated. Crest not expected to reach Winnipeg until about May 5.
xxxx RELIEF FUND The Greater Grand Forks Flood Relief Fund has been established. Contributions can be sent to: Greater Grand Forks Flood Relief Fund, c/o First American Bank, P.O. Box 13118, Grand Forks, N.D. 58206