Sunday, May 10, 2009
Crisis Research Continued
Yes, last blog ever! At the beginning I thought I would focus on the whole town now I want to switch gears and write my paper on more of the VCSU side of things along with the city combined. The continued research has been easy to come buy since I live in the small town of Valley City. The first thing I conducted was to lay out a time line for Valley City. The river was anticipated to flood when we got hit with two back to back blizzards at the end of March. The first sandbagging efforts where held at sandbag central on March 23rd. The volunteer fire fighters and other units where dispatched to help sandbag all day. From then on the sandbaggin siren blew into April asking for help. It was predicted to get to 22 feet of water and the prediction was pretty much dead on. Clay dikes where built 24 feet to hold the 22 feet of water back. After these where built some had breeches buy the country club and the softball diamonds southwest of town. A few days after mandatory evacuations where put in place for the dissabled and elderly. I myself was evacuated from my partents house before getting ready to sit down for Easter Sunday dinner. A few days later on Aprtil 16th VCSU classes were cancled and put online for the remanding semester. Yippy! no more chemisty 5 days a week or ever again! The sewer system backed up a day later. People were urged to leave and portapotties were installed through out the town a day after that. A week and half later the water started to decline, already meeting its crest the tuesday before. Things have started to quite down now. During the rest of my research I found the major spokespeople who have dealt with this entire situation. Another thing I doing is telling the flood from my prespective. How, I thought it was handled and if things could have been done any better or differently.l
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Hey, thanks for telling me the first date of sandbagging! I was looking all over the internet trying to find that out. Anyway, I am doing my research on Valley City but I also narrowed it down to VCSU in some parts because VCSU is a huge part of Valley City. I felt that as a VCSU student, I got information a lot quicker than some of my friends who don't go to VCSU. I think because Steven Shirley and others involved on campus attended city meetings and were involved with the city, they were able to release the info to us promptly.
ReplyDeleteI was also evactuated but moved to an apartment (that I was planning to move into the end of the semester, anyway) that was just outside the 500 year flood plain. I'm not entirely sure on that, though, because it's a little difficult to read that map. I might still be in the zone a bit. That map was one thing I found people didn't like.
I didn’t know that the first sandbagging started on March 23. It seems like we were just helping sandbag just a week ago. It sounds like you have a lot of good information for your report. That would suck to be evacuated right before you get to sit down for a good meal on Easter. However, it’s better to be safe because you never know if there would be a breach in the river or the sewer could have been worse.
ReplyDeleteYou are taking an interesting point on this paper. I like the way you are doing a timeline as some people can't remember when this all started. It feels as though its been going on forever! It is interesting to see how much time was inbetween the first initial concern and then when dikes were breaking and contingency dikes were being put into place. Also, when the sewer was breaking. I like that you are writing from your POV since you had to evacuate, I was fortunate enough to not even have to sandbag and we just left for a weekend while the sewer was down. Although we do live in the additions just south of town which the river runs directly through my backyard...we we saw it first hand as well. We didn't lay a sandbag around our house but yet I spent a lot of days sandbagging our neighbors yard and pumping the water already in their basement out. It will be cool to hear from another person that was directly effected by the water.
ReplyDeleteNice post, and I too feel that some things could have been handled differently during this flood crisis. Sounds like you lucked out not having to finish chemistry 5 days a week! You are definitely right that the sirens were going off in the month of April. It was good to see how well the community came together though up at the wintershow and other places around town building dikes and filling sandbags.
ReplyDeleteYour timeline idea is very interesting since most people do not remember the dates that the flooding started. Your getting evacuated during Easter supper had to be rather annoying, but it probably could have been much worse if it would have flooded your house. I bet you were very happy when you found out that chemistry class was canceled for the rest of the semester. I have seen pictures in the newspapers about all of the portapotties in Valley City.
ReplyDeleteThis is a very good description of events for the flood. I think we were all excited that we school was canceled, I know that there are a couple classes that i am glad i don't have to go to. I just wish they would have handled the online classes a little different.
ReplyDeleteYou really have your research down on this topic. It really stinks that you had to miss out on Easter dinner. I liked your idea of setting up a timeline. I also thought of doing that. I am also doing Valley City as my topic.
ReplyDeleteYou did a good job researching the dates for this project. I am doing mine on Valley City, and i could not find what date the sandbagging actually started. I know when the flooding started, but not when we started the sandbagging process. Thanks for informing me of the sandbagging date, since i have the same topic.
ReplyDeleteThis is a great start on the project. I would recommend doing this in a list format and getting all of the information detailed. For example who issued the evacuation and which evacuations were mandatory and which were voluntary. It sounds like a lot of members of our class are doing their research on the same subject, so it is nice that you are trying to take an unique approach on the topic. Could VC have responded to the crisis better? What were some mistakes that the community made? I was there when the voluntary evacuation of the city was put in place, and I remember the scrambling of the channels announcing that all people in Valley City to evacuate. The mayor had to come on later to clarify that this was a mistake and the evacuation is voluntary.
ReplyDeleteI am interested is seeing everyone else report that is doing theirs on Valley City or VCSU just to see what other people think about how VC and VCSU handled the crisis. I was over in south korea from the 13th to the 23rd so I did not hear about anything tell i got back from my trip.... which was good timing for me because I did not have evacuate, I was already gone. as I was reading through the reply I noticed that everyone seems to be having problems with dates, I too had this problem with the Bismarck floods. I had to do a lot of deep digging to get some. You have a good idea about how you want to go about your project.
ReplyDeleteYou got it right on Ben, this town went through hell and back. We survived and can handle a lot, but if it gets much worse or any worse, it would spell disaster for this little town. What i didn't know was that you had been evacuated out of your house, I thought it was just a voluntary situation.
ReplyDeleteYAY for no more chemistry! But sadly this is our last blog. I think you are completly right that the town went through a lot in those couple of weeks and I think that we were able to pull through it together as a community. Thank goodness for the quick information that was given to us in terms of voluntary evacuations, breaches in the dikes and the need for sandbagging. I like how you are doing your paper from your own personal experiences but adding a lot of important dates from the flood fight. Way to go Ben! We did it, great job!
ReplyDeleteI also did not realize the first day of sandbagging was March 23. When you really think about it everything that happened was quite the series of events. A lot of hard work, and volunteer time went into saving the city. I feel that shows a lot for the city, and VCSU’s crisis communication plan. If it were not for a lot of effort and planning, a lot of the city would be under water. It is crazy to think about.
ReplyDelete