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As the flood waters of the Red River inch ever higher, the fate of Fargo was Story of the Day for the third day in a row. All three newscasts led from North Dakota as it remained in doubt whether the 43-foot high dikes would withstand this weekend's crest of high water.

Television reporters are seldom more imaginative than when they are assigned to cover natural disasters. Tyndall Report was impressed in the bitterest depths of this winter when CBS' Cynthia Bowers proved how cold it was by hammering a nail with a frozen banana. Now her colleague Dave Price, Early Show weathercaster, dons waders to stride waist deep into the ice covered backwaters of the Red River. "It is bitter and it is painful," he confessed, complaining of a 6F wind-chill factor as he waved around sheets of ice. Yet when one thinks about it, being surrounded by freezing water in waders is actually 26F warmer than that wind chill.

Still, Price told us that the ice is "a blessing and a curse" for the people of Fargo. The curse is that it makes sandbags difficult to make. They "become frozen rocks that cannot seal out the water; so baseball bats break up the sand." The blessing is that snow cannot melt "and that is helping slow the river's rise." ABC's Eric Horng gave us a geology lesson to explain Fargo's problem. The Red River valley is "essentially the dry bottom of a prehistoric lake, one of flattest places on Earth." So when water accumulates it just spreads sideways. "In this battle of Man vs Nature, sheer will goes to Fargo; sheer size to the river. The Red River has now swelled"--should that be swollen?--to more than 45 times its normal volume and flow."

CBS' Dean Reynolds showed us the countryside surrounding Fargo where evacuations are accelerating and the US Coast Guard has rescued nearly a hundred people. ABC's Barbara Pinto visited downtown Fargo, where a secondary levee has been built in case the riverside one fails. It would sacrifice the 30-or-so homes that lie between the two structures "but it could save the city." Quoting the National Weather Service, NBC's Kevin Tibbles told us "the next 48 hours are absolutely critical." How are conditions? "It is wet and frigid."


Andrew Tyndall 3/28/09 10:34:49 pm

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