The latest information from NorthCom:

PETERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Colo. – U.S. Northern Command continues to coordinate additional and ongoing Department of Defense’s support to Federal Emergency Management Agency, state and local authorities in North Dakota and Minnesota supporting disaster operations in response to flooding in North Dakota.

New – Minnesota

• Mobilized a Defense Coordinating Officer and Defense Coordinating Element to FEMA Region V Regional Response Coordination Center in Bismarck, N.D., in response to the flooding. The DCO acts as the liaison between FEMA and USNORTHCOM, relaying capabilities available to FEMA and coordinating movement of active-duty personnel and equipment to assist should the need arise. The DCE acts as administrative support to the DCO.

Ongoing – North Dakota

• Deploying five CH-47 Chinook helicopters to Grand Forks Air Force Base, N.D., for a variety of missions in support of FEMA. Potential missions include search and rescue, supply transportation, and movement of evacuees or other response personnel.
• Deploying two UH-60 Blackhawk helicopters to Grand Forks Air Force Base, N.D., for a variety of missions in support of FEMA. Potential missions include search and rescue, supply transportation, and movement of evacuees or other response personnel.
• Deploying three Search and Rescue planners from U.S. Northern Command’s headquarters in Colorado Springs, Colo., to assist in SAR planning at the Joint Personnel Recovery Center at Tyndall Air Force Base, Fla. These three planners from Standing Joint Force Headquarters North division of USNORTHCOM will assist in the efforts being conducted at the JRPC, which focuses specifically on large-scale search and rescue operations in the event of a hurricane or natural disaster. When a disaster occurs, the JPRC activates and coordinates the SAR actions of all rescue aircraft in the disaster area to improve the efficiency of rescue operations and reduce the potential for mishaps.
• Providing two search and rescue planners from Air Forces Northern at Tyndall Air Force Base, Fla. to the Joint Personnel Recovery Center.
• U.S. Northern Command, in coordination with Air Forces Northern, is sending one aviation planner to the North Dakota Emergency Operations Center to prepare for potential SAR missions in the affected areas.
• FEMA requested, and USNORTHCOM is supporting, Grand Forks Air Force Base, N.D., as a National Logistics Staging Area. The NLSA will consist of five to 10 acres of space, including 1,000 square feet of office space, necessary to support forward distribution of supplies and equipment to affected areas in North Dakota. The airfield at the base is also being used to forward stage Active Duty helicopters indicated in the new portion of the release.
• Mobilized a Defense Coordinating Officer and Defense Coordinating Element to FEMA Region VIII Regional Response Coordination Center (RRCC) in Bismarck, N.D., in response to the flooding. The DCO acts as the liaison between FEMA and USNORTHCOM, relaying capabilities available to FEMA and coordinating movement of active-duty personnel and equipment to assist should the need arise. The DCE acts as administrative support to the DCO.

U.S. Northern Command, established in the wake of the terrorist attacks of 9/11, is responsible for Homeland Defense and Defense Support of Civil Authorities.

An HH-65 Dolphin helicopter, from Coast Guard Air Stations Traverse City, Mich., flies over the Red River March 28, 2009, in response to the flooding. Another Dolphin helicopter, from Air Station New Orleans, accompanied them during the transit from Grand Forks to Fargo to stand-by for rescue operations. (U.S. Coast Guard photo/Petty Officer 3rd Class Erik Swanson)

Machinery Technician 3rd Class Dan Fraley of Station Sault Ste. Marie assists an Oxbow, N.D. resident and her faithful friend as they disembark from the station's airboat along the Red River in North Dakota, Thursday, March 26, 2009. The station is one of three airboat crews from the Ninth Coast Guard District which conducted house-to-house searches for citizens in distress ubder the incident command of Coast Guard Sector Upper Mississippi River in flood-prone communities on the Red River. (U.S. Coast Guard/Photo by Petty Officer Bill Colclough)

Many more pics to be found here.

Here are some new items that may be of interest as you follow the flooding on the Red River.

Oakport Township Tested by Fire

While the nation anxiously waited for the Red River to crest in Fargo, small towns like Oakport Township on the outskirts of Fargo were already dealing with their own devastating flooding. And in Oakport’s case, fire.

The house fire added another tragic dimension to the situation in Oakport Township. Giant flames ate a huge gash through the roof as black smoke soared into the sky, all while a line of sandbags surrounded the base of the home.

Clay County Emergency Operations Center spokesman Dan Olson said fire crews couldn’t get closer than 200 feet from the home in Oakport Township because the area around it was so flooded.

The cause of the fire isn’t known, but township officials have been telling residents who are evacuating to shut off gas and electricity before leaving their homes. No injuries were reported.

Sgt. Ryan Alderman of the Clay County Sheriff’s Department said authorities had rescued more than 120 people by boat in Oakport Township since Thursday night. About half of the rescued people called officials and requested help, while the others waved down boats while they were on patrol in the town of about 1,600 people.

Garrison Dam has resumed water releases

North Dakota’s Garrison Dam has resumed water releases, which should bolster Washburn’s drinking water supplies and help restart two power plants, an Army Corps of Engineers spokesman says.

The dam ceased releasing water at midafternoon Tuesday to help relieve flooding problems downstream at Bismarck.

That flooding had eased by late Thursday, when the dam began releasing 3,000 cubic feet of water per second. It was releasing 9,000 cubic feet per second by Friday afternoon, corps spokesman Paul Johnston said. The flow should be enough to bring the river’s level back up to the intake pipes at Washburn’s water treatment plant, he said.

The increased water supply also should help the Stanton and Leland Olds electric power plants resume their operations, Johnston said.

The next few days will be critical as North Dakota braces for record-setting Red River water levels, officials in the affected area said on March 26.

A National Guard task force brought strong communication with other agencies and the physical effort of 1,200 citizen-soldiers and -airmen to a fight against time.

“The biggest issue is if the dike breaks,” Army Col. James Hrdlicka, commander, Joint Task Force East, said by telephone from Fargo, N.D., the state’s largest city, with about 100,000 residents facing potentially disastrous flooding.

“It’s supposed to crest approximately this Saturday,” Hrdlicka said, emphasizing that weather forecasting is an uncertain art. “One or two days — don’t take this for gospel — during that time frame is when it’s going to be critical that that thing holds. Once it starts to subside, once we get to that point and nothing has given way or it’s still holding, then we should be OK.”

North Dakota was at the epicenter of a four-state struggle against the elements, while three others had their hands full as well.

In Minnesota, Gov. Tim Pawlenty was submitting an expedited major disaster declaration request as about 430 Guard members distributed sandbags, provided security at sandbagging sites, patrolled dikes, secured pumps and controlled traffic.

In South Dakota, Guard members helped the state’s transportation department remove snow after severe snowfall on March 23 fell on Sturgis and Rapid City, forcing the closure of Interstate 90 from the Wyoming border to Chamberlain.

In Montana, National Guard UH-60 Black Hawk and CH-47 Chinook helicopters provided search and rescue assistance after transportation workers were unable to breach heavy snow and ice to reach stranded motorists following the March 23 snowstorm.

Hrdlicka and his Soldiers and Airmen found themselves facing some of the storm’s severest tests after the melt from accumulated snow and ice threatened to swell the Red River to levels not seen in living memory.

“Our presence helps,” Hrdlicka said. “It makes people feel a little more comfortable.”

Guard members assisted with evacuations and traffic control, lined up to place sandbags that strengthened levees, and provided aerial surveillance. North Dakota troops, in particular, provided personnel and resources to key flood-fighting areas. They filled, stored and distributed sandbags; patrolled dikes; broke ice jams; provided security; operated traffic control points; and helped stranded citizens threatened by flood waters.

The National Guard was contributing to a team effort that included the state’s Emergency Operations Center working at its highest activation level, a Red Cross shelter opening, a private engineering company blasting ice in Bismarck, and local law enforcement and other rescue workers out in force.

“The most important thing is communicating and being with the city officials and their [Emergency Operations Center],” Hrdlicka said. “When we’re out doing missions, the soldiers and airmen are side by side with the citizens.”

The Red River previously reached about 39 feet in 1997, the commander said. “If it gets over 39 1/2, something like that, then this will be one of the biggest events in this area. The entire state is seeing flooding that many people really haven’t seen in places that normally don’t.”

Some Guard members were on duty even though their own homes were at risk. “If there is a situation at their house, they come off state active duty and go take care of that,” Hrdlicka said. “A lot of them come back.”

Joint Task Force East serves the Red River Valley, where the river flows north from the border with South Dakota to the Canadian border. Wahpeton is the first community in the river’s progress from the southern part of the state. It flows north through Fargo, the Grand Forks and numerous communities on up to Canada.

“We will be following this all the way up to Canada,” Hrdlicka said. “We had a call for volunteers. We had real short notice. Within 24 hours, we had 200. They step up, they really do. The attitude is really good. It’s snowing out. We had freezing rain last night. The roads are slippery.

Visibility isn’t that great. We’ve got folks out there on traffic control points and building dikes and putting up barriers, and their attitude is good. They have a sense that they’re helping somebody, and that really makes a difference.”

DVIDS
Story by Staff Sgt. Jim Greenhill

Sgt. 1st Class Alan Sabinash, green jacket, and several members of the 817th Engineer Company (Sappers), assemble sections of a collapsible barrier device called a HESCO, March 24, in Fargo, N.D. The sections of HESCO are being linked together and filled with sand to create a flood barrier from the rising waters of the Red River. U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Master Sgt. David H. Lipp

While deployed in Iraq, the towering Hesco barriers that ringed the base became a familiar sight to Army Spc. Ryan L. Karsky.

These large, modular steel baskets, lined with a fine, mesh material, held compacted desert sand, gravel and chunks of concrete. They served as an effective shield against hostile fire and shrapnel.

Now back home in North Dakota, Karsky, a member of the North Dakota Army National Guard’s 817th Engineer Company, has found a different use for the trusty barriers. He was among about 50 Guard soldiers and airmen constructing miles of Hesco barriers along low-lying parts of Fargo, which is dealing with major flooding.

For many of south Fargo’s most flood-prone neighborhoods, the Hescos are all that stand between the homes and the rising Red River.

“I saw them all the time in Iraq,” Karsky said, “but I never ever thought we’d be using them to fight a flood. I thought we’d be over here throwing sandbags.”

Sandbag dikes were the protection of choice back in 1997, the last time the Red River seriously threatened the Fargo area and before many of the citizen-soldiers and -airmen working the dike lines today were even Guardsmen.

Army 1st Sgt. Curtis W. Kaseman, also of the 817th, remembers the 1997 flood fight well. And as an Iraq war veteran, he’s another soldier who had come to appreciate the Hescos for the protection they offered in a combat zone.

Kaseman, of Jamestown, N.D., said the Hesco barriers in Iraq were much larger — some as high as 20 feet — than the 3-foot versions being used in Fargo this week. The barriers are lined with plastic to help hold back the impending wall of water.

“They are not new technology as far as fighting floods is concerned, but they definitely are new around here since 1997,” Kaseman said.

Representatives of Hesco Inc. said the barriers were designed primarily for flood control and to impede hillside erosion. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan opened up a new use for the barriers.

What makes the barriers so beneficial is the speed at which they can be constructed compared to traditional sandbag efforts. Company specifications claim that what would take a crew more than 70 hours to do with sandbags can be done in about 30 minutes with Hesco barriers.

As the Guarsmen set up and fill the Hescos, it is a race against the clock and the swelling river. The members of the Jamestown-based 817th have been placed on active-duty orders and sent to Fargo to fight the flood.

They join more than 800 North Dakota Guard soldiers and airmen, most of whom volunteered, for the statewide flood-fighting efforts. All are working alongside civilian contractors, businesses and homeowners to hold the high ground.

Before his unit was activated, Army Spc. Brett M. Steele was a Guard volunteer already involved in flood fighting in central North Dakota, near Beulah. He said it was hard to just pick up and leave.

“But this is where we need to be now,” Steele said. “My only hesitation in all of this is that I had to move from one spot in need to another one.”

A North Dakota Army National Guard dump truck gets a load of clay to haul to low areas where earthen dikes will be created in an effort to block rising flood waters of the Red River in Fargo, N.D., March 24, 2009. DoD photo by Senior Master Sgt. David H. Lipp

Army Spc. Jordan J. Nygaard, also with the 817th, said he was amazed by the rapid-fire pace of the dike work going on around him this week. The soldiers kept the Hesco assembly line humming, as a parade of dump trucks supplied fresh clay and dirt to the site near Fargo’s Lindenwood Park. A fleet of Bobcat loaders, driven by civilian contractors, filled the Hescos as quickly as they were set up.

“It’s kind of intriguing to see nine Bobcat loaders working so quickly within a distance of one city block,” Nygaard said. “There’s a lot of moving parts. You have to watch out.”

Gary Boatman, a Fargo resident whose mother lives near Lindenwood Park, was in the area and saw the work being done by the Guard. He wanted to help, so he brought his own Bobcat loader to the fight, complete with a cardboard sign that said, “Tell me what to do!”

“It’s not just these neighborhoods that appreciate what the Guard is doing for us — it’s the whole city of Fargo,” Boatman said, between hauling loads.

On Fargo’s north side, flood fighting was in full effect yesterday morning.

Because of the terrain in the area, Hesco barriers could not be used, said Army 1st Lt. John W. Peyerl, a volunteer from the 136th Combat Service Support Battalion in Grand Forks.

Peyerl said about 130 Guard soldiers and airmen were forming a chain to move sandbags and place them about 2 feet high.

“They’re a little sore out there today, but I don’t think any of them are sorry they signed up for this,” Peyerl said. “This is what they want to be doing, and they are out having a good time.”

Air Force Staff Sgt. Elliot Steinbrink, with the North Dakota Air Guard’s 119th Wing, had more on his mind than some of the other volunteers on the sandbag line. His home is only blocks away from the river.

“It makes me nervous, but everyone needs the help, not just me,” Steinbrink said. “When you’re working as a National Guardsmen, it means something. People recognize that and it feels good.”

DoD
By Army Sgt. 1st Class David Dodds
Special to American Forces Press Service