Every once and a while every squirrel finds a nut.
That nut for the Fargo Forum came in the form of a April 10, 2014 article citing comments by Walsh County Sheriff Lauren Wild on people need to “get the message you can’t drive through floods”.
The corollary is that there are inherent dangers relating to floods in the ways they cross roads. However, as that water moves across the Red River Valley it presents an increased risk to structures in flood plains that provide a vital buffer to adjacent higher ground.
Look at the images and consider Sheriff Lauren Wild’s comments as though they pertained to encroachment into the natural flood plain.
“This is just stupid,”
“The first day of flooding and we already had two go in. When will people get the message that you can’t drive through floods?”
Wild said he is frustrated by people who choose to drive through floodwaters.
“It’s maddening,” he said. “My sympathy is waning. We’ve been through this too many years.”
Consider how poor the judgement really needs to be… for the Fargo Cass Diversion Authority try to attempt fostering growth into the last natural flood plain that will always be at risk due to its lower relation to the higher ground surrounding it.
As for the local leaders bald faced lie claiming what happened in Minot will happen here. Nonsense! The very nature of the Red River Valley topography is that it is relatively flat. That flatness provides a natural buffer of flood plain which would prevent water from reaching the rooftops of homes. The real danger is irresponsible encroachment into the flood plain reducing the net flood protection benefits that already exist in storing water.
Fargo and Cass should fork over every dime for new flood insurance policies and premium increases that they’ve created by changing and displacing water from the flood plain causing higher flood risks for their own constituents.
Water across a road or water in the flood plain, both are clear indicators of “don’t…, keep out…, not a wise choice…”
Yet there is something even more disconcerting in the mix. Pro-diversion ilk are “so obsessed” with the idea of a dam and diversion that they label it flood protection in an attempt to distract people from the flood plain development project that it really is. Imagine the temerity and malfeasance of committing $65-$70 million tax dollars to the OHB rink dike “component” without congressional approval and funding to build the Fargo Dam and FM Diversion, which is the sole reason and need for the the OHB ring-dike proposal. Especially when that $65-$70 million could be put toward internal protections to safeguard the “Fargo” that exists…, and not one that greedy salivating hand-wringing developers have their agenda set on.
Take a look around! The very people brazen enough to give the command for police escorts for sand bags, for a flood that was never going to happen, are the same people people, seemingly unconcerned with the flood that exists in the natural flood plain when it comes to development plans, trying to manipulate the end goal of “more Fargo” meaning more flood plain development at all costs.
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