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December 18, 2011 in Nation/World
Months after flood, many miserable in Minot, N.D.
Thousands in North Dakota homeless as winter looms
MINOT, N.D. – In the middle of winter, when the temperature slips toward zero and bone-numbing winds blow in off the prairie, living in a Federal Emergency Management Agency trailer may not be hell – it’s way too cold for that – but as the saying goes, you can see it from here.
“We basically live in a 400-square-foot icebox,” said Shanda Cool, who lost not only her house, but the boutique artisan bakery she was on the verge of opening before the Souris River flooded most of central Minot last June.
“The trailer just hemorrhages heat. It gets down to 5 below and the heater comes on every 15 minutes,” said her husband, Minot State University photography professor Patrick Sheldon. But it could be worse, they reason: Shanda’s brother and his wife share their FEMA trailer with a baby and a stressed-out Great Dane.
Nearly six months after a record-breaking flood wiped out a fourth of the city’s housing and left 11,000 people scrambling for shelter, the grim future that many feared has come to pass: The frigid winter has descended, and hardly anyone is securely back home.
City officials say that only about 10 percent of flooded families have been able to return to fully repaired homes. An additional 20 percent have been able to get enough windows, doors and heat to live in the ruined shells of their houses through the winter.
Thousands are living in bleak emergency trailer lots, and hundreds are still on waiting lists, shuffling among hotel rooms or bunking cheek-by-jowl with friends and family. All have had their lives put on hold as they wait – not just for temporary housing, but for home rebuilding loans and other assistance, and crucially, a decision on permanent flood protection that will determine whether rebuilding is even possible.
FEMA officials initially pledged to have all emergency housing in place by October, giving homeowners temporary shelter through the winter while they sort through their finances. But too few units were ordered and suitable land to put them on proved hard to find; now, federal officials hope the last 206 families can move by the end of this week into the suddenly prized metal-box housing units.
“I often wake up and I go, ‘How can this be my life?’ ” said Cool.
As disasters go, Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans and the tornado in Joplin, Mo., grabbed far more national headlines, not to mention millions upon millions of dollars in quick federal sympathy. Here in Minot, no one died. But the bulk of the city’s oldest, prettiest and most affordable neighborhoods are in shambles, and cash payouts have been minuscule.
“Our problems here are so multifaceted that it’s hard to get your hand around how big the problem is,” City Manager David Waind said.
Thousands of homes were inundated in water 10 to 12 feet deep, heavily laced with sewage and toxic agricultural chemicals, which seeped into drywall, studs and floors, in some cases for a month or longer. Few had flood insurance.
Now, homeowners like Hope and Ryan Anderson are left with homes that would cost half as much as they’re worth just to fix – with no guarantee they won’t flood again. The Andersons got a $30,200 payment from FEMA, bought another house on a hill above town, and are now bleeding the last of their savings paying two mortgages while they wait to see if the city will buy them out of their old house.
Cool and Sheldon had hand-sanded the floors, tiled the shower, and installed shelves in their beloved 1941 Craftsman – which turned into a sodden wreck that reeked of raw sewage when the river flooded. The bank regularly reminds them they still owe $100,000 on the mortgage.
Cool said she approached the Small Business Administration for a loan to fix the house, but was told she’d have to give up the bakery she was preparing to open in an artsy loft downtown – which also suffered devastating flood damage – if she wanted to save her house.
“I couldn’t believe they wanted me to choose,” she said.
The couple opted for Cool’s lifelong dream. They let the house slip into foreclosure, moved into a FEMA trailer and are trying to get the bakery up and running. They hope to eventually build a new house with Sheldon’s parents, who also lost their home.
“I don’t necessarily want to move in with my in-laws, but it’s our best option. We have to pool our resources,” Cool said. In the meantime, she’s working three jobs; Sheldon’s working two.
FEMA has given out $89.4 million in individual grants to Minot homeowners and pledged $20.5 million for various restoration projects, a commitment that is expected to increase. But central Minot’s once-gracious old neighborhoods remain ghost towns.
Deanne Criswell, federal coordinating officer for FEMA, said the agency hoped to find ordinary rental housing for most flood evacuees. But the oil boom of the last few years had left the city – even before the flood – with few available units and skyrocketing prices, she said.
The agency wound up putting temporary units in two trailer parks in town, then erecting the equivalent of a new town on the southeast edge of the city; the Virgil Workman Village now holds 600 FEMA units on pads spread across a huge swath of graded, treeless gravel and snow.
Many displaced residents say they have no choice but to try to repair the homes they have – when there’s enough money, good weather and available contractors.
Brooke Waind and her husband, who is the city manager’s son, are living in a FEMA trailer with their newborn triplets and 3-year-old son.
In a case of horrible timing, they moved to Minot the same week as the flood, leaving their still-mortgaged house in Portland behind when they couldn’t sell it.
They arrived with a loaded moving van to a scene of people frantically evacuating their belongings. Now, in the trailer, there’s barely room for three cribs in the cramped front bedroom and three high chairs in the tiny kitchen.
The Wainds hope to buy her mother’s flooded house and finish the $70,000 in repairs it needs. But it’s not clear whether they’ll be able to, because the house could be targeted for demolition when the city decides on a new flood protection zone. An $18.7 million plan to buy out 127 homes to make way for new dikes was endorsed by the City Council early in December, but precise funding and locations still are uncertain, and it appears clear that more homes will be affected.
“We’ve been waiting on pins and needles. The last two flood plans that came back, our house was on the fringe. So we don’t know,” Waind said. “If we’re not able to move into that house, we have no other option.”
For now, the trailer is home, and FEMA is the landlord.
“They come once a month and ask what our plans are,” said Rolanda Hussey, who was renting the first floor of a house with her two young children when the house was destroyed. “I ask them, ‘Plans? Where am I going to go?’ They gave me a list of apartments or houses for rent, and it was like, $2,000 or $3,000 for a three-bedroom? It’s like, there’s no way I can live like that.”
Cool said the FEMA representative who visited her recently expressed displeasure that she had hung some of Sheldon’s photographs on the wall of their unit.
“She said, ‘These are really nice pictures, but I don’t want you to have so many homey things on the wall, because I don’t want you to feel like this is home. I don’t want you to think you’re staying here,’ ” Cool said.
“Like my goal in life is to live off the government in a 400-square-foot trailer in someone’s yard,” she said. “I just got mad. I said, ‘There may be a few more holes in the wall, but this picture lets me get up in the morning.’ ”
Stocks plummet as outlook in Europe dims 
dataxman on December 18 at 5:04 a.m.
So I guess we can say Barak Obama doesn’t care about white people…
westerly on December 18 at 7:20 a.m.
Nodak winter, when it comes, -40 below and 10 foot drifts, bitter cold and wind.
mrd on December 18 at 9:18 a.m.
Seems like everyones complaining, but why does the government have to fix everything?
ivaner22 on December 18 at 4:25 p.m.
I don’t believe that any REAL Nodak people will depend on the government to fix anything or everything. They just are not that kind of culture. So many problems seem to be from the riff raff moving in there seeking oil field work. I don’t fault them for wanting to work. Perhaps there is a problem when people insist on rebuilding in flood zones, fire prone areas, on earthquake faults, on lakeshores, in avalanche areas, below a volcano etc.
We’re just all human and land is precious. Minot is moving forward by rezoning flood zone. Kudos to the writer of this article. Very informative and well done.
Diana on December 18 at 4:42 p.m.
@mrd: Because we try not to be an appalling, ignorant, selfish, social darwinist, greedy, mean-spirited banana republic?
johnclarke on December 18 at 4:45 p.m.
When a Federal Disaster is declared, then we should help. This is why we fund FEMA, and also the Reserves and Guard when they are not off fighting wars. I’m all for immediate large scale response with search and rescue, temporary shelter, medical, food clothing etc. What I’m not in favor of people living in flood zones and not bothering with flood insurance. The systems of dikes and levees will fail and if you want to live in these areas that used to flood every year, you might want to reevalute your address. Same goes for the coastal regions that get wiped out by hurricanes every other year. Move. Live someplace safer. The taxpayer is not supposed to be your insurance policy.
greenlibertarian on December 18 at 5:01 p.m.
Welcome to rural America, now just like a third world country.
misjustice on December 18 at 5:10 p.m.
Someone crowed, “So I guess we can say Barak Obama doesn’t care about white people…”
Yeah, I guess that’s true; just like George W Bush didn’t care about the brown people that drowned in New Orleans…
Seriously though, why do folks living in a flood plan not have flood insurance? It’s fairly cheap…
Diana on December 18 at 5:54 p.m.
Misj, maybe they can’t afford it. I read in another article that some of these families are eating on $5 a day.
mrd on December 18 at 6:56 p.m.
Diana - you just don’t seem to get it. So can they afford what they are experiencing now? At some point people have to rely on themselves and their families instead of the tax payer. I’m fairly liberal but at some point I get tired of paying for people who can’t or won’t take care of themselves. It’s not selfish, ignorant greedy or any other adjective you want to toss out, it is the reality that many of us work hard to get by and sacrifice much just to be able to pay our bills. You should try it sometime. ,
cryssT on December 18 at 8:08 p.m.
“The trailer just hemorrhages heat. It gets down to 5 below and the heater comes on every 15 minutes,”
I live in a well insulated house and our furnace comes on every 15 minutes at 5 below. No argument about living in 400 square feet - that’s a pain.
Diana on December 18 at 8:36 p.m.
mrd, I was actually paying attention to your comment until the last, unnecessary sentence.
This may come as a shock to you, but I don’t care what you think.
misjustice on December 18 at 9:21 p.m.
Diana, I know that many folks struggle to put food on their families but to live in a flood plain and not have insurance is penny wise but pound foolish.
“The average cost of flood insurance in North Dakota is about $500 a year – less than $1.50 a day for financial protection from what could be devastating effects of a flood in a home or business.”
http://www.fema.gov/news/newsrelease.fema?id=53593
Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not against helpin’ out folks that get hit by natural disasters. BUT folks also need to take steps to help themselves if they can. And it would seem that many of those in the above article certainly could have invested in flood insurance; instead of tiling a bathroom or investing in a business like Cool did.
And I bet that the folks that walked away from their home in Portland, leaving it to go into foreclosure, are rethinking the wisdom of that decision. How is it tax payers’ fault that they have cramped quarters in a FEMA trailer; or our responsibility to bail them out?
Diana on December 19 at 7:41 a.m.
Misj, I guess I’m not smart enough to make value judgments on who deserves a taxpayer bailout. Between Wall Street, oil companies, automobile giants and victims of Katrina or Minot, it’s too much for my brain to handle.
momofboys on December 21 at 12:03 p.m.
Im going to start by saying i am from Minot North Dakota. My home was not flooded.
First off i do not find it right for anyone to judge a disaster area based on opionions. Unless you are from here, have seen a disaster area or know the details of Minots problems you really have no right judging what people are going through.
No one in Minot is asking for the government to take care of them, give them hand outs, or pick up the pieces of their lives.
North Dakotans are like no others. We take care of eachother.
During the evacuation strangers were helping strangers unload their entire homes.
Tell me- have you ever seen a disaster leaving thousands homeless and have less then 300 people in a shelter?
Its not normal. Why did the shelter have less then 300 people? Because other North Dakotans opened their homes and hearts to these people. Some friends, some family, most were strangers.
Every disaster comes with its own territory of problems, every disaster deserves attention and help.
We are not asking for a hand out. Heck we would be happy getting all flood victims in a FEMA trailer and out of hotels at this point!
Seriously 5+ months AFTER the flood we still do not have people in their FEMA homes.
Do you realize what type of winters hit North Dakota? Because if you do not, then again, you have no right to question the warmth of these trailers.
These trailers are not built for North Dakota. Period.
The pipes on the trailers have already frozen and we arent even in the dead of winter yet.
momofboys on December 21 at 12:18 p.m.
Im going to start by saying i am from Minot North Dakota. My home was not flooded.
First off i do not find it right for anyone to judge a disaster area based on opionions. Unless you are from here, have seen a disaster area or know the details of Minots problems you really have no right judging what people are going through.
No one in Minot is asking for the government to take care of them, give them hand outs, or pick up the pieces of their lives.
North Dakotans are like no others. We take care of eachother.
During the evacuation strangers were helping strangers unload their entire homes.
Tell me- have you ever seen a disaster leaving thousands homeless and have less then 300 people in a shelter?
Its not normal. Why did the shelter have less then 300 people? Because other North Dakotans opened their homes and hearts to these people. Some friends, some family, most were strangers.
Every disaster comes with its own territory of problems, every disaster deserves attention and help.
We are not asking for a hand out. Heck we would be happy getting all flood victims in a FEMA trailer and out of hotels at this point!
Seriously 5+ months AFTER the flood we still do not have people in their FEMA homes.
Do you realize what type of winters hit North Dakota? Because if you do not, then again, you have no right to question the warmth of these trailers.
These trailers are not built for North Dakota. Period.
The pipes on the trailers have already frozen and we arent even in the dead of winter yet.
For those of you who think having your funace kick in every 15 minutes is “nomal” i recommend having your insulation or furnace checked because that is not “normal”
For those of you who want to discuss why do many did not have flood insurance i recommend you check into the Canada dam systems, the purpose they had, and what happened. I also recommend you check out the lay out of our city. While checking out the layout of our city please keep in mind that MANY if not most of these homeowners lived NO where close to the river and were never in the original flood plain. The flood waters should have never been as high and as damaging as they were.
They were as high and damaging as they were because of in proper care of the Corps of Engineers. Not because of the people within this community.
This flood ruined most of the middle class residential neighborhoods, not some river front high class homes.
Not to mention the schools, the parks, the zoo, all of the businesses.
The picture of this flood is much larger if one actually stopped to look before judging the small picture and making false assumptions.
I am a very proud North Dakotan and we will fix our city, we will move forward, and we will help our fellow North Dakotans with or without state, federal or any other assistance.
momofboys on December 21 at 12:25 p.m.
90% of these people did NOT live in the flood plain, when most of them purchased their homes, Flood insurance wasnt even on the table as an option, because they lived no where close to the river- they were NOT in the zone.
A very small % did have flood insurance and those are the ones who DID live in the flood plain.
The two Canadian dams were built for FLOOD control. Instead of Canada using these dams in their intended way- they used them as recreation areas.
The waters became so high that a local news reporter went up to the dams and came to warn us that the dams were at very dangerous levels. We reacted, got our answers and started to evacuate.
Water from those dams should have been released over a period of time by the Canadian officials and none of this would have happened.
This isnt a natural disaster-this was a man made disaster but pointing fingers does no good. North Dakotans are better then that but if you want the truth, there is your truth.