Eyes on Fargo, ND

While enjoying the sun in Arizona with my children I was fully aware and feeling a bit guilty as I followed what was happening across the country in Fargo, ND. Yes, Fargo is a special place to me for many reasons and I was reminded of it today when I received a email from North Dakota State University Alumni Association. NDSU is where my husband and I met and where I completed my first psychology degree. My parents both grew up in Fargo, ND; they met and got married there. I was born in Fargo, ND and after moving away to get my Masters degree in Minnesota and then, moving back for a short time, my son was born at the same hospital in Fargo as I. I often tell him stories of how he was born in a winter in which Fargo was on many days the coldest place in the country (with the windshield). While I do not miss those winters at all, I know that growing up in North Dakota (we moved to Bismarck when I was one) very much shaped the person who I am today.

As I was reading my alumni email, the irony of the flood struck me. I graduated with my BS degree from NDSU in May 1997. That same spring the Fargo, ND and Grand Forks, ND areas (among others) experienced what was called a 100 year flood. See video of the 1997 flood at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNC9dj9ekLI

I remember class being cancelled at all the local universities and us going out and volunteering to sandbag. In Grand Forks, the univseristy (UND) shut down and final exams were cancelled. Schools and homes were flooded but thanks to lots of hard working volunteers many were also saved. The communities seemed lucky to me to have so many willing and able young adults from the universities to spend days filling, loading, and stacking up sandbags.

So here comes the irony, I am graduating this May with my PhD and Fargo has once again experienced a serious flood. I have many extended family members in Fargo who are thankfully safe and sound. I think it is hard to imagine what a flood looks like in a area of the country that most people think of as extremely rural, however, the Fargo/Moorhead region is a growing city of over 250,000 people. The email from NDSU included a couple interesting websites as reposted here:

"NDSU alumnus, Lee Hoedl,’85, has captured the essence of this past week via video and music. http://www.youtube.com/user/leehoedl

Photos and other flood information links http://www.ndsu.edu/; http://www.cityoffargo.com/; http://www.in-forum.com/"