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Programs aid Minot’s flood recovery
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Several programs to assist residents in their recovery from the 2011 Souris River flood have impacted numerous individuals in the past 10 years. The following shows the impact of major programs, some of which continue to provide assistance.
Minot Area Recovery Fund
The fund was created to help residents with clean up, restoration and rebuilding to remain in the community. Minot Area Community Foundation distributed funds as grants to individuals and to nonprofits assisting in the rebuilding effort and other humanitarian areas. More than 60% of donations came from individuals across the state and country. Total Dollars Raised: $7.48 million Families/individuals assisted: over 2,100
Acquisition of Flooded Properties
The City of Minot used Community Development Block Grant-Disaster Recovery funds to provide a 25% match to leverage State Water Commission funds for homeowners participating in acquisition of flood properties. There were two allocations – an initial voluntary acquisition and a second involuntary acquisition. Properties acquired: 288 Amount expended: $53.84 million The City of Minot used Community Development Block Grant-National Disaster Resilience funds to provide a 25% match to leverage State Water Commission funds for homeowners participating in the involuntary acquisition of flooded properties. Properties acquired: 187 Amount expended: $32.74 million
Rehabilitation/Reconstruction of Flooded Properties
The CDBG-DR-funded programs provided low- and moderate-income homeowners with rehabilitation loans forgivable after three years, capped at $90,000 per single-family, non-historic structure and $110,000 per single-family, historic structure, and reconstruction loans forgivable over five years, capped at $195,000 per single-family structure. Homes rehabilitated: 86 Amount expended: $5.84 million Homes reconstructed: 31 Amount expended: $4.78 million
Small Rental Rehabilitation/Reconstruction
The program rehabbed or reconstructed rentals of one to four units for lease to low- to moderate-income tenants for at least five years. Properties reconstructed: 4 single-family housing units; 1 multi-family triplex Properties rehabilitated: 2 single-family housing units; 3 duplexes; 2 triplexes Amount expended: $2.84 million
Homeowner Reimbursement Program
The city used CDBG-DR funds to reimburse homeowners up to $10,000 for repairs to primary residences. Households reimbursed: 403 Amount expended: $3.52 million
Resilient Homebuyer Program
The NDR program provides a $60,000 forgivable loan to purchase a house in a resilient neighborhood in Minot. Applicants, to date: 168 Homebuyers assisted, to date: 41 Amount expended, to date: $2.31 million Sources: Minot Area Community Foundation, Minot National Disaster Resilience Program
JUNE 2021
Mayor: Flood left imprint on Minot By JILL SCHRAMM
Senior Staff Writer jschramm@minotdailynews.com The impact of the 2011 flood will be felt in Minot for many years, said Minot Mayor Shaun Sipma, who also sees progress being made in recovery. “I think we’re as far along as we could hope to be, given the substantial challenges that came along with the flood of 2011,” he said. “To think how far we’ve come, with the state partnered with us, it has been an all-out monumental achievement to get as far along as we’ve come in 10 years. Sipma “Most people, unless they see flood walls and levees when they come into Minot, they would have no idea what happened here. To take a look at what was, in early August 2011, to what it is today, I think is a testament to the resiliency of the neighbors themselves down in the valley,” he added. Neighborhoods largely are rebuilt, and in some cases, older neighborhoods that needed a facelift now have one, Sipma said. “You can look around and see that there’s still some work to do on individual houses. Clearly, some folks, even like myself, are still not done with the house 10 years later. But it’s little by little. I think getting most of the ‘zombie’ homes cleaned up was a big step in improving the neighborhood atmosphere of the valley, making sure that kind of derelict debris, so to speak, wasn’t something holding people back psychologically,” Sipma said. The Souris River flood damaged more than 4,000 structures, including 2,716 homes in the valley, according to city data. In the spring of 2014, a citizen activist counted 370 neglected properties, of which 300 had structures. Due to a focus on getting these socalled “zombie” homes cleaned up, very few remain in 2021. The final properties face foreclosure or other legal issues that are delaying removal, Sipma said. The two properties that are reminders of the flood are the former Lincoln and Ramstad school areas, he said. Still vacant, the Lincoln property will become part of a proposed water diversion area, while Ramstad remains idle as the school district considers its options, given federal restrictions on the property. Much of the impact of the flood is less visible, affecting the hearts and minds of residents. There’s an emotional element in having endured a disaster. With buyouts occurring, some homeowners have additional emotional burden in having to sell homes that house family history. The city still is working through the acquisition
of properties needed for flood control, knowing that every sale that is finalized brings needed closure to additional residents, Sipma said. The flood also soaked up disposable income as people invested in rebuilding and even now continue to pay off loans. “There’s a few of them that like to remind me often that they had to go back to work because they were flooded, that their retirement years, literally, were washed away,” Sipma said. “There’s no easy answer for them, because the individual assistance wasn’t enough to offset anywhere near what people’s costs were. I still have my second mortgage, too.” The economic drain on the community could increase when flood insurance rates rise, as they are expected to do with new flood plain mapping late this year or next year. Sipma said his attempt to calculate the loss due to flood insurance shows about $9.6 million leaving the community in homeowner payments over 12 years, or $27.6 million over 20 years, if flood control takes that long to build. Combined with rental and commercial properties, Minot could see a loss of $31.7 million over 12 years, or $76.8 million over 20 years, based on his rough, worst-case scenario numbers. Sipma said the numbers are fluid and dependent on several variables, but they show that a significant amount of money would leave Minot through the flood insurance program. Values of houses in the valley and the ability to sell those properties also would take a hit under new, higher flood insurance rates, he said. In addition, the flood will have a financial impact related to the cost of construction of an enhanced protection system and future operation and maintenance of that system, Sipma said. Improved flood control is one of the positive after-effects for a city that has seen its share of floods over the years, Sipma said. In addition, there’s an effort to ensure functional enjoyment of the river for recreation, he said. Additionally, the flood forced Minot to address needs, bringing in federal dollars that enabled improvements such as replacing downtown infrastructure and providing more affordable housing, Sipma said. Portions of southeast Minot developed that might not have done so without the pressing needs stemming from the flood, he said. The disaster gave the community an opportunity to take stock of where it wants to go into the future, Sipma said. “I look at the long-lasting effects to the community but also look at the good impacts that have come from it,” he said. “We can’t just focus on the negative. We have to focus on the positives that are coming out of this too.”
‘We were so lucky’
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JUNE 2021
By ELOISE OGDEN
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Zoo curator recalls evacuation of zoo and aftermath “Someone had contacted Rolac Construction and Ron LaCount had his whole crew come down here and build a dike around the clinic just in case we couldn’t get the giraffes out. That’s where the giraffes were. “It was amazing and honestly, I can’t even describe that day. So much was happening. You couldn’t be a part of everything but people just did what they needed and they did it,” She said the hard part was everything was sold out in town because everybody was trying to move. “We were looking for boxes and we ended up buying laundry baskets and weird containers to put stuff in because everything was sold out,” she said. “But anybody who came down and asked if we needed help, we said “yes” and we gave them a job to do. We had so many people helping us. It was amazing,” she said.
Regional Edtior eogden@minotdailynews.com
Brandi Clark vividly remembers when Roosevelt Park Zoo was evacuated before the 2011 flood and the following time until the zoo reopened. Clark, who has been with the zoo since 1992, started as a zookeeper. She’s now zoo curator. She said staff had been attending Ward County Emergency Management meetings since the word was there was the possibility of a flood. “Over the weekend we had heard that we would possibly flood,” she said. “Ron (Ron Merritt, Minot Parks superintendent) met with everybody park districtwide on that Tuesday after Memorial Day.” She said he told them they had to prepare because of the possibility of flooding. “Dr. (Ann) Olson (zoo veterinarian), who was on staff at the time, had been planning for it in case because we knew that if we had to evacuate, how would we get most of these animals out of here?” Clark said. Clark said many animals are born at the zoo or transferred there and then live there for their entire lives. “They never have to leave and if they leave, they go to another zoo. We went through our list to see what we would need for crates and if we had crates available and what we would do. So we were prepared,” Clark said. She said they were prepared on paper but when the evacuation came they had to start working it. “The fairgrounds were great enough to lend us all their panels like the ones they use for the horses in the barns. We were able to set up another zoo at the Ward County building (north of Minot),” she said. She said many volunteers – “lots of staff, lots of friends” –
Eloise Ogden/MDN
MOVING ANIMALS
Brandi Clark, right, Roosevelt Park Zoo curator, and Amanda Cone, lead outreach keeper, are The zoo animals were shown with Fred and George, the zoo’s red pandas during a behavioral training session for the red caught and transferred to the pandas on May 26. Clark recalls the 2011 flood and what the zoo inhabitants and zoo staff went North Zoo and the giraffes were kept secure at the zoo in through. came to help them. “We basically sent a crew up to the Ward County building to start building enclosures for all these animals. We had a nickname – we called it the North Zoo,” she said. “We told them what animals we were bringing up and needed them to build enclosures for them so we’d be prepared. So once we had them secured here we would transfer them up there,” she said. She said they held on moving some animals because other North Dakota zoos had called, said they could take some species and were on their way to Minot to get them. “The great part was they called us – they were amazing. It was
pretty fabulous,” she said. She said the other zoos cared for them the entire time. By this time she said the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was taking down the zoo’s perimeter fence. “That was pretty hard because that’s what keeps things out and keeps everything in,” she said. She said the zoo also has animals on zoo grounds that they don’t own and the loan agreements include information about making sure if anything happens to them detrimentally and/or physically, they have to be contacted. “I bascially started at the top of the list and informed everybody of what was happening,
what our plans were and asked them first, if they wanted animals returned to them because that’s their choice,” Clark said. She said some institutions wanted the animals. For example, she said the Minot zoo had trumpeter hornbills and the zoo that owned them took them back. “They housed them until we were back and then they sent them back to us which was great,” Clark said. She said Terry Lincoln, director of Dakota Zoo in Bismarck, went ahead and contacted a friend of theirs, Jim Fouts, director of Tanganyika Wildlife Park in Goddard, Kansas, and asked if Fouts had room for any animals “because he knew we were going to need
some spaces for some large animals.” She said Lincoln called and said he’d already called Fouts who said he would take the Minot zoo’s giraffes, zebras, all the cats, warthogs and hornbills. “They also came and got the animals except for the cats. We loaded up the cats and took the cats ourselves,” she said. “The hard part was there’s only so many people that can haul giraffes. I contacted three or four giraffe-hauling companies to see who could get here first so they could transport our giraffes safely. We had two that said they could come so we told them we don’t know if we’re going to flood tomorrow so please hurry,” Clark said.
Minot. “Our bears were the only animals that we had to immobilize chemically,” she said. “The Como Zoo (in St. Paul, Minnesota) ended up taking them which was super great. The guy that took all our big cats transported them (the bears) for us because he had the crates for the bears.” When this happened, she said the Como Zoo had just remodeled and made a new brown bear exhibit so the old brown bear exhibit was empty. “That worked out really great and the bears had a blast while they were there.” She said the Como Zoo put up signage saying, “Because of the flood, we’re here.” Afterward, she See ZOO — Page 4
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JUNE 2021
MDN File Photos
LEFT, the Zoo Office building, located just south of the Zoological Building, was condemned after the 2011 flood. CENTER, flood waters entered the bear exhibit. The new Visitors Center, RIGHT, was just being built when the flood hit the area.
Zoo
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said people would tell them at the Minot zoo, “We saw your bears in Como Zoo.” She said the bears had so much fun because they had underwater viewing and when they went swimming they would see people. “They’d never done that before and were such good showoffs there because they had never been at a place like that,” Clark said. The Minot zoo’s penguins also went to the Como Zoo. Clark said some of the animals now at the Minot zoo, like the bears, giraffes and lions, are the same ones who went through the 2011 flood evacuation. “We evacuated most of the animals that Tuesday and then that following Wednesday they came to pick up the bears and the giraffes. We counted it up – it took 36 hours for us to evacuate,” she said. Clark said during this time some staff members were also moving out of their homes. A first evacuation occurred in the city of Minot in late May 2011 but after about a week they heard it might not flood. After the first evacuation it was decided to keep the animals at the North Zoo for awhile so they did not have to readjust again. “We decided everyone was doing fine, we have a system, we’re not ready to go back,” Clark said. Then another evacuation
took place in Minot in later June and the Souris River flooded. Clark said one of the people on staff was in the National Guard and got called for duty. “I remember the night that we flooded he texted me and said, ‘I’m at the zoo right now and the water just went over the banks. It was just so sad thinking ‘Are we ever going to get back there?’” she said.
AT NORTH ZOO
The zoo staff now would be working at the North Zoo for awhile “I think the hardest part when we did this was trying to get to the North Zoo. I remember one week I had to drive to Lake Darling just to get up there. You could either sit in line for two hours or drive. I was tired of sitting in line,” she said, referring to only one road – the West U.S. 83 Bypass – available to reach the north or south part of Minot. She said they worked in shifts at the North Zoo. “For probably about two or three months we had 24-hour shifts because when we first moved up there we didn’t have security like here so two people stayed overnight. We had to sleep on cots. It’s kind of spooky sleeping under one roof with all those animals – something would be pawing or just the different noises under one roof,” she said. Clark said not just zookeepers but the entire zoo
staff worked at Zoo North so everyone had work and would not lose their jobs. “We were just a phone call away if something happened. We never had an escape thank goodness. We had it down to a science but we didn’t have bathrooms up there so we had to get a plumber to come in and get us bathrooms and we had to get running water. We washed dishes in kiddypools for a long time until we got running water. We had to haul water for awhile and we didn’t save any of our hay because until it actually flooded we’d go down and grab hay. The hay barn had thousands of bales so we lost all that hay and had to buy hay after that,” she said. She said they had to rent a refrigerated truck for all their refrigerated goods and frozen goods. When they needed to wash towels and other items used for the animals, she said they went to a laundromat in town but to save money they put up a clothes line for drying the washed items. “The staff was amazing. We basically picked up from here and just started working up there. We did exactly everything that we do here but in a different environment – the training went on, the enrichment went on,” Clark said. Sometimes people driving by the building north of Minot were caught by surprise when they saw zoo animals outside.
“People would call and say, ‘I was just driving on the way back from base and I saw some people riding camels’ because the camels we had then, we rode. We’d get on them and lead them around the building to give them exercise,” Clark said. Zoo staff traveled between the zoo office now in the Minot Municipal Auditorium and Zoo North. Some of the outreach animals – chinchilla, some birds – were also at the zoo office. “We took everything — from our knives, our containers — everything that we really used because we didn’t want to lose anything. That’s what Ron told us — ‘Take everything that you can,’” Clark recalled. She has a list of when each animal was moved due to the upcoming flood and when it returned to the Minot zoo. For example, the alpaca left May 31 and returned in July 2012. She said they had the reptiles at the Maysa Center and Minot State University took the axolotl. Clark said local rancher Doug Woodall took the zoo’s bison. “He came and got our bison before the flood. He brought his panels, set them up and loaded them for us,” she said. After the flood, she said Woodall suggested that he loan bison to the zoo, which is done now. “The three adult bison are all owned by Doug Woodall and in the fall we send the calves
back to him,” she said. “We did end up donating some of our reptiles (tortoises and 12-foot boa) to Reptile Gardens in South Dakota,” she added.
RETURNING TO THE ZOO
It was about three weeks or so before zoo staff could go onto the zoo grounds. Clark said she remembers the weather was so hot. “When we came back I think the hard part was there was so much soot everywhere. That was probably the worst. We saw how much soot and were thinking how is this even going to work?” she said. She said they found dead fish and other “strange things.” “It was weird,” she said. She said all the buildings were redone. “The old zoo office was condemned. They condemned that building just because it was an older house anyway,” Clark said. The zoo office had been in that building. The current Visitors Center was just being built. After the flood many people helped clean up the zoo. Clark said anywhere from two to 10 people in a group of military members from Minot Air Force Base came to the zoo every day to help. “They’d get off work and then they’d come down here and work. They brought their grill so they’d eat lunch here and they’d work. They were amazing,” she said. “Some places we had any-
where from 2 to 8 inches of soot that had to be removed,” she said. She said a company came in to remove it. “But we were responsible for example for that 3-foot perimeter fence that would go round animal pens. We had to get that out,” she said. Every day they would work on the clean up. “We’d have people taking care of the animals. When they got done, they would come down and we’d work as much as we could. Gosh, how lucky we were to reopen when we did,” she said. She said they were able to move back to the zoo in summer 2012. Animals were being returned and the zoo reopened in spring 2013. “We have learned so much especially about disasters and safety preparedness. We had warning. There’s some zoos that never had warning and lost animals because of that. How scary. We were very lucky we had time,” she said. She said they now have crates in every building. “So if we were ever to have a disaster, they are ready to go,” she said. She said the behavioral training program was created and now a lot of animals do different things including training for crating. “We have changed so much. I feel that our animal healthcare program, our behaviorial training program, our enrichment – everything – it’s just night and day,” she said, adding, “We were so lucky.”
JUNE 2021
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Too much to contain By KIM FUNDINGSLAND
gave way to the rising water. The club’s tennis courts, located Staff Writer in a low area, went under water kfundingsland@minotdailynews.com quickly. So too did the outdoor After several weeks of raising swimming pool and lounge area. dikes and filling sandbags, the Muddy water snaked its way onto water of the Souris River finally be- the green course, traversing through the low areas. It took only came too much to contain. It overa few hours for greens and fairways flowed barriers designed to protect and tee boxes to disappear under the Minot Country Club, carrying the brown onslaught that was soon muddy water into the picturesque to ravage the heart of the City of clubhouse and inundating the Minot. It was the sad beginning of course that was christened in 1929. the historic flood of 2011. The day was June 23, 2011. Homes and businesses were Located west of Minot and situ- flooded all along the path of the ated along the Souris River, the Souris, the single costliest event in Country Club essentially experi- the history of the valley. While the enced what the entire Souris River flooding of a golf layout takes a Valley would soon know all too back seat to hundreds of personal well – there was no stopping the tragedies brought on by the flood, rising water of the Souris River. it nevertheless provides a snapshot The Souris overtopped dikes of the impact of such a major event. covered with Visqueen. There was “In May we kind of thought we simply too much water. Exhausted had it beat,” said Todd Lee, club workers and tired volunteers could professional. “Still, I remember the only watch as weeks of shoring up back four or five holes when the defenses against a possible flood water was so high we couldn’t have
any golf carts back there. Then, the day that it broke over, it was the nicest day we had all summer. It was 75 degrees and the water was running through our parking lot.” The greenskeeper at the club, Bruce Ruppert, had spent countless hours trying to protect the course from flooding. On June 23, 2011, he knew there was little more that could be done. “Absolutely I knew it was trouble,” recalled Ruppert. “I was standing in the parking lot and the water was creeping over the top of a temporary dike that was built. I don’t want to go through it again.” “I think on a Tuesday we were told we had to be evacuated at noon the next day,” said Lee. “I thought we’d maybe get five or six inches of water in the pro shop and a foot or so in the clubhouse which is a little lower. Then we went from getting six inches to five feet.” Lee had removed some merchandise from the pro shop, but not all. Some items were moved to
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Bruce Ruppert, left, greenskeeper, and Todd Lee, club professional, are well known to Minot and area golfers. Both were working for the Minot Country Club during the historic 2011 flood and are now fixtures at the Vardon Golf Club at the same location. Kim Fundingsland/MDN
Floodwater poured onto Country Club
countertop height, a level that was reached with ease as floodwaters continued to pour in. At the nearby clubhouse the current was so strong that tables and chairs were swept around the room. Even a piano was overturned. The large windows that offered a view of the course was plastered with mud and debris. Some windows broke due to the pressure. The extent of the damage to the buildings at the Country Club was enormous, and similar to what had happened to countless structures throughout the river valley. “I was just a disaster area,” recalled Lee. “Personally, I was fortunate my house wasn’t involved. I was living on North Hill.” Thousands of people were not so lucky. Many had both homes and businesses flooded. And, after the water began to recede came the lengthy and seemingly impossible job of cleaning up and rebuilding. “I remember walking around after the water went down,” said
Lee. “Once it got inside the dike system you had to pump it back out. What was left underneath wasn’t real pretty.” “We had moved most of the golf carts and equipment out of the way,” added Ruppert. “But some of the stuff we didn’t get out.” With the clubhouse destroyed, the pro shop soaked, and the entire course covered in mud and silt, everyone knew it would take a massive rebuilding effort to get the course playable again. Members of the Country Club eventually decided to vacate the property and a build another course. In time, new owners purchased the flooded property. Lee and Ruppert joined them. “We had a couple of rough years but stayed in contact with the new owners and was thrilled to be back,” said Lee. “I never imagined the flood could happen like it did.” See GOLF — Page 6
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Golf
JUNE 2021
Continued from Page 5
Ruppert was called upon to oversee the rebuilding of the course. “It took a lot of work to even start rebuilding, with all the trees and stuff,” remarked Ruppert. “Not too many courses get to rebuild either.” The rebuilding included removal of 700 or more trees, some that were aging and others that were dead or dying, many due to flooding. A new grass mixture was seeded on the fairways, and a new irrigation system was installed. “That was a big and expensive project,” said Ruppert. “The irrigation system was brand new in 2012, all new pipes and watering heads and control system.” In addition all of the greens were redone. The
Photos by Kim Fundingsland/MDN
clubhouse was razed and the pro shop renovated and expanded to include a new restaurant. The course had a new name too, the Vardon
Club, and opened for play on Aug. 4, 2013. “We’ve been growing every year with membership and the number of rounds
LEFT: The clubhouse, including the formal dining area, was completely ravaged from flood waters in 2011. Damage was so severe that the building was razed. ABOVE: When water began flowing over the played,” said Lee. “We’re dikes and onto the manicured grass of the Minot open to the public.” The Vardon Golf Club is Country Club it became very apparent that the located at 7101 County Road flood of 2011 would be unlike any other in the history of the Souris River. 15 West, Minot.
THANKS TO OUR COMMUNITY, WE ARE BACK BETTER THAN EVER!
CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION AUGUST 7TH 1219 E. BURDICK EXPY •857-4166
From temporary to permanent
JUNE 2021
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By JILL SCHRAMM
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Wheatland residents turn bad fortune to good
Senior Staff Writer jschramm@minotdailynews.com White, boxy FEMA trailers were a fixture in the backyards of valley homes and in mobile home parks after the 2011 flood in Minot. The temporary housing units provided by the Federal Emergency Management Agency were stop-gap measures for many displaced residents, who appreciated a place to stay on their way to a long-term solution. For some residents, though, the FEMA homes were the solution. Having purchased the temporary housing unit she lives in today, Coreen Hart considers the FEMA housing program a game-changer in her flood recovery. “I’m grateful for having this as my home,” Hart said. “I guess I’m in a better place, because if it wasn’t for the flood, I wouldn’t have taken the steps that brought me to this point in my life right now, which is where I actually own a home, and I’m safe. I don’t have to worry about that.” The decision to purchase their FEMA unit eight years ago gave Derek and Kathryn Borud a more secure future, putting them in a financial position to now scout the market for a larger home. “This really worked out well for us and our benefit. We’re really thankful that we had that option,” Kathryn Borud said of buying the temporary unit. “We just got in a sticky situation with the flood, and we utilized the resources that were given to us.” Both Hart and the Boruds live in Wheatland Village, which began as a FEMA group housing complex and transitioned to a privately-owned mobile home park, open to other manufactured homes. FEMA had established three group housing complexes, providing 800 housing units. Those sites were De Sour Valley Heights on the outskirts of Burlington, Recovery Village northeast of Minot and Virgil Workman Village on the east end of Minot. Virgil Workman Village was the first to open, on Oct. 3, 2011, and today is known as Wheatland Village. FEMA’s temporary housing mis-
Jill Schramm/MDN
Coreen Hart of Wheatland Village stands May 22 on the ramp serving her mobile home, a former FEMA temporary housing unit that she lived in after the 2011 flood and later purchased.
Elyse, Derek and Kathryn Borud are shown last summer. Submitted Photo
sion in the Souris Valley came to a close in September 2013. FEMA had provided 2,052 manufactured homes to shelter 1,960 households. There were 92 households requiring two units. The Boruds, not yet married, had just rented an apartment in west Minot three days before the 2011 flood came. The water was higher than projected, forcing them to evacuate. They spent the first two months at hotels that were offering free, temporary housing to flood victims. They
ended up staying with family for a time despite a desire not to burden relatives, and also spent quite a while living in a pop-up camper. After about six months, they acquired a FEMA unit but ended up bouncing among a series of such units before getting a more permanent placement in a three-bedroom unit that accommodated them and Derek’s daughter. “We’ve been in the three-bedroom ever since,” Kathryn Borud said. “This trailer was kind of like a blessing in disguise. It just helped us with
being able to save money.” They invested in renovations and interior remodeling. Derek Borud, who owned a carpentry business at the time and now works as a painter, put in new floors and cabinets and expanded a bedroom in the unit that Kathryn Borud said has held up well structurally. The low payments enabled Kathryn to afford nursing school and provided the financial security that now lets the couple consider buying a larger house for their family, which includes a son born in January, even
as Kathryn pursues her master’s degree. A person’s attitude also makes a difference in the recovery process, Kathryn Borud said. “You have to be able to be open and resilient to change,” she said. Hart also had been renting before the flood. She had lived about a year in a house that included separate upper level quarters, where her daughter lived. “Right by the river, so it was easy to judge how it was climbing up,” she recalled of 2011. “When they evacuated us the first time and we got to go back home, I thought this is just a bunch of malarkey. It’s not going to happen. The only thing, I think, that made it real to me was hearing the sirens that day.” When the second evacuation came, she and her daughter could take only their pets and what they could fit in a van. “It was scary. I didn’t have anywhere to go,” said Hart, who hadn’t wanted to be parted from her three Dachshunds. She eventually was able to move in with friends for four months. Her first FEMA temporary housing unit was a small model in a mobile home park. FEMA later moved her to a unit in Virgil Workman Village, which came to have roof issues, so she moved to a different unit in 2012, which she now owns. Hart worked with FEMA staff to obtain her unit at an affordable price, with help from a state low-interest loan. She built a storage shed and finds the mobile home is just right for her and her dogs. Hart said the former FEMA unit gives her stability, ownership and enables her to remain in Minot. Her daughter also continues to live in Minot. Hart said living in the former FEMA park brings back flood memories at times, but she feels she has more than recovered from the 2011 disaster. “There was way more good than there was bad. It was just getting from that point to this point,” she said. “Do I wish we didn’t have the flood? Yeah. But, like I said, that flood is what brought me to where I’m at today.”
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Walloped by water
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Corner businesses ravaged by flood By KIM FUNDINGSLAND
Staff Writer • kfundingsland@minotdailynews.com Fear. Shock. Those two words were used to describe his feelings when the historic flood of 2011 was imminent. Rocky Schell was a co-owner of Val’s Cyclery on the corner of Third Street and East Central Avenue when muddy and rising flood water inundated the business. “It was just that feeling of are we going to come back? Are we going to make it?” recalled Schell.
JUNE 2021
This aerial view, looking north across Third Street viaduct, shows the extent of floodwater at the intersection of Third Street and Central Avenue. At the top right is Val’s Cyclery. Also visible is the canopy over the gasoline pumps at the Cenex station. Kim Fundingsland/MDN
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JUNE 2021 His brother and co-owner, Rory Schell, remembered the feeling of helplessness as the speed and depth of the water ravaged the building that housed a family business started by teir father. “When we first saw the water coming and couldn’t get to the shop, I got binoculars and watched and looked at the water,” said Rory Schell. “It washed the sandbags off of our sidewalk. We had a 2,000-pound switch from the Soo Line against our building. I thought the building was going to tip over. The velocity of the water was so strong.” Across the street to the east was Ebeneezer’s Eatery and Irish Pub. The popular facility was also targeted by raging water several feet deep that destroyed the interior of the business. To the north of Val’s Cyclery the Cenex station and local Cenex headquarters would also be pulverized by flood water. Tony Bernhardt, CEO, learned he had lost a daughter to a car accident while the flood was ravaging through the Cenex location on Third Street and Central Avenue. For him it was the worst of times. “It was very personal for me,” remarked Bernhardt. “Those are memories that are drilled in me and I’ll never forget it. It was a sad day.” Four feet or more of water was running through the Cenex building and the large sign on the corner was still lit. “It amazed me how quick the water was moving,” said Bernhardt. “It was a mess. Within that building we had a large basement with 12 feet of water.” The building contained an Ace Hardware store, a parts store, Cenex, car care shop, and corporate offices. The flow of the water was so strong that a customer vehicle that remained on the lot when the water came was picked up and carried away by the current.
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Kim Fundingsland/MDN
Rocky Schell, left, and Rory Schell visit inside the showroom of Val’s Cyclery on the corner of Third Avenue and East Central Avenue. The business was completely gutted following the devastating flood of 2011.
Photos by Kim Fundingsland/MDN
LEFT: The shop area inside the former Firestone Store, now Pomp’s, was coated with several inches of mud and sand due to the 2011 flood. Note the highwater marks on the wall. RIGHT: The sidewalk in front of Ebeneezer’s Eatery and Irish Pub is filled with tables and other items removed from the business following the 2011 flood. Ebeneezer’s would rebuild and remains in business today.
Across the street from Cenex, to the east, was the long time Firestone Store, now Pomp’s. Brian Nelson was the manager of Firestone then and Pomp’s today. “What comes to mind is that I never want to do it again,” said Nelson when asked what he remembers about the damaging flood. “It was very taxing on a person. Customers were wondering what was happening. Em-
ployees were calling and asking what do we do. The worst thing was the uncertainty, the helplessness. I didn’t have the answers for customers or employees.” When the horrendous onslaught finally relented enough to allow owners to return to their businesses, they were sickened by the experience. It was like Act Two of a miserable drama. “When we opened the front door, the whole floor
was gone,” recalled Rory Schell. “It was so dark. We were looking at a big job. We couldn’t do it ourselves.” “We had ceiling tiles coming down, fixtures destroyed, showcases completely damaged. We were overwhelmed,” added Rocky Schell. “There was just no end to it. We had to tear all the electricity out. We gutted it out.” At the nearby Firestone Store Nelson experienced a
similarly shocking return. “It was a mess. It was pretty bad,” said Nelson. “I still remember our big overhead doors were pushed open from pressure. We had fish stuck in our door jam and a big northern stuck in our chain link fence.” Mud and sand was several inches deep throughout the building. Additionally, the force of the water carried away many large tires that had remained at the site.
“We did get two and onehalf semi-loads out, just barely a dent,” remarked Nelson. “We lost a lot of product. We had to scrap 250 truck tires, brand new ones that we just got in a week before.” There were other losses too. The force of the water had pushed open a door to a building housing farm equipment tires. “A lot of big tires floated several blocks away, into Eastwood Park,” said Nelson. “A lot of what we did that first week and a half was just picking up tires. I told myself then, and tell myself now, it was just a nightmare to get back to normal.” While Val’s, Ebeneezer’s, and Firestone would eventually reopen for business, Cenex moved their headquarters away from Third and Central but retained their pumps. “We were closed 123 days for clean-up and renovation,” said Bernhardt. “We sold the building and now rent a portion of it. There’s people that stop there all the time.” While some people walked away from flooded homes or businesses, others, like those on the corner of Third and Central, showed remarkable resilience in rebuilding from a disastrous situation but don’t want to go through another flood. “Walk away? No. Not that,” said Rocky Schell. “No. No. No. No. Not walk away.” Rocky Schell retired from Val’s Cyclery about five years after the dreadful flood. Today the business is operated by Rory Schell with assistance from his son and daughter. “Would I go through it again?” asked Rory Schell. “No. No. Not again.” At Pomp’s Nelson has a similar view. “I told my boss that if something similar was to happen again, I’d probably put my keys on my desk and walk away,” said Nelson.
Memories remain after new start
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By JILL SCHRAMM
JUNE 2021
Minot family grows stronger through recovery
Senior Staff Writer jschramm@minotdailynews.com Terri Pecharich still misses her old neighborhood at times, although she feels a sense of security in living outside the river valley that flooded in 2011. “I grew up in the valley, and that’s all I’ve known is the valley,” Pecharich said. “To this day, I miss the valley, but mentally I couldn’t see myself staying in the valley. Too many memories.” However, her family’s flood recovery was positive in some ways, too. “It definitely made us stronger as a couple and as a family, for sure. I don’t think we’ll ever be the same, but not all negative either. There’s still some positives that came out of it – just our strength in each other,” she said. The decision to move from the valley didn’t come right away. Adam and Terri Pecharich lived in a FEMA home on their property while investing their life savings into rebuilding their house near the former Lincoln School. After many nights and weekends spent working on the house, they moved back in a week before their daughter, Jenna, was born. “We put a lot of blood, sweat and tears into that place,” Terri Pecharich recalled. “We were already halfway done rebuilding before we even heard about the buyout.” Once they knew a buyout for the flood protection project was coming, they decided against
Jill Schramm/MDN
The Pecharich family, from left, Jenna, Adam, Terri, Alissa Ewan and Lauren, spent time May 10 in Leach Park in a portion of southwest Minot where their family home flooded in 2011. putting additional money into finishing the basement level. Raising Jenna and an older daughter of Terri’s, Alissa Ewan, they needed more space. They sold the house and purchased a house in north Minot. In addition to Ewan, now 23, and Jenna, 9, the Pecharichs now have a daughter, Lauren, 5.
There were challenges in selling their valley house. Adam Pecharich explained it was impossible for a buyer to get a loan because the house was valued at zero due to the proposed buyout for a diversion project that would be a number of years away. After living in the house for a year, they were able to get a buyer,
who took possession about six months before the buyout occurred. Adam Pecharich said the sale didn’t recoup the investment of their savings into the rebuilding, although they were able to pay off outstanding loans. They had been assisted by FEMA, Small Business Administration loans
and a grant through a Minot Area Community Foundation program for flood victims. The grant fund included receipts from a BlackEyed Peas benefit concert in Minot. “The Salvation Army helped us a lot and the Red Cross, Terri Pecharich added of the disaster assistance those organizations provided in the weeks after the flood. “The community really stepped up to the plate as far as offering everything from home goods to food to cleaning supplies.” Ewan benefited from Minot’s Resilient Homebuyer Program when she and her fiance purchased a house in north Minot in 2020. Ewan said she learned about the program after a friend used it. She wasn’t initially sure she was eligible, having been a child and not a homeowner in 2011. Discovering she was eligible, she applied and received assistance that enabled her to purchase a larger home that will offer more permanency into the future. “I knew I did not want to be in the valley,” she said, “but it was nice to stay in Minot.” Having been displaced from her home and school, relocating to a classroom in Minot Municipal Auditorium for a time, Ewan said recovery never really ends from a mental standpoint. Even now, driving through formerly flooded neighborhoods stirs memories and looking at flood photos can be emotional for the family. “It’s always going to be there,” Adam Pecharich said.
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Seeing kindness in chaos
JUNE 2021
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PAGE 11
Minot family thankful for community that banded together
By JILL SCHRAMM
out of town and the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Senior Staff Writer They moved around from famjschramm@minotdailynews.com ily’s and friends’ homes nine times As devastating as the 2011 flood before settling into a FEMA tempowas for them and their community, rary housing unit on their property. “It was absolutely perfect. It was Jason and Kassidy Skjervem of a place to call home, to call our Minot look back at the past 10 years own, after several months of living as a time of personal growth. “We grew stronger and more out of suitcases and being so compassionate as we experienced warmly welcomed into others’ the challenging realities of endur- homes,” Kassidy Skjervem said. They lived 11 months in the ing a disaster that took out our home and much of our commu- FEMA unit while waiting to hear if nity. We grew as a family as we their lot would be needed by the leaned on one another and together city as part of a future flood protecpressed on, and we grew as a com- tion project. Once they learned they munity as we rebuilt neighbor- were not to be bought out, they hoods one home at a time together,” began rebuilding. Kassidy Skjervem said. “Losing our The Skjervems hold many house was difficult in many ways, memories of those days – bleaching but seeing the goodness and kindness of so many others around us every piece of wood, pulling every as they supported and cared for us rusty nail, protecting their boys’ litand so many others was so incred- tle feet from broken glass and other hazards. They remember feeling so ibly special.” The Skjervems credited their cared for by friends coming to endurance to support from imme- scrub, build and feed and by the diate and extended family, friends, Salvation Army and Red Cross, friends of friends, local and out-of- whose trucks came through the state churches, volunteer groups neighborhoods daily to hand out from within the community and meals, snacks and occasionally sur-
Submitted Photos
ABOVE: Hudson and Asher Skjervem wave to the friendly food truck drivers who traversed the flooded neighborhoods to help people mucking out and cleaning up after the 2011 flood. LEFT: Jason and Kassidy Skjervem and family stand earlier this year under a Bible verse painted in the basement of their home. Around 20 students from the college ministry, Cru, at the University of Washington had helped for a week in multiple houses in Minot over spring break 2012, including the Skjervems’ home. They painted the Bible verse on a support beam, which the Skjervems only recently covered when finishing their basement.
prise toy gifts for the children. “I’m so thankful for the memories of our community banding together to help one another,” Kassidy Skjervem said. The Skjervems, who now have five children, had multiple reasons to rebuild and remain in the valley. One was having few options financially, but they also wanted to be close to Minot State University to be accessible to the students they work with in a campus ministry called Cru. Additionally, the neighborhood where they had lived for about two years before the flood felt like home. “We do love the valley, the oak trees and our neighborhood,” Kassidy Skjervem said. Recovery remains ongoing for the family, though. “Prior to the flood, we were planning to pay off our home loan within a couple years. Instead we found ourselves needing to take additional loans in order to rebuild. Thankfully we qualified for the SBA loan, which allowed us to refinance our home at a much lower interest rate,” Kassidy Skjervem said. The Skjervems only recently finished their basement and replaced their backyard fence. “There are still doors and trim we never got to, even after nine years, but we are okay with that. We are thankful to have been able to rebuild, even if it’s still a work in progress 10 years later,” Kassidy Skervem said. “We decided early on that we would crumble if we allowed our circumstances to rule us, so we needed to be proactive to make a daily choice to trust God and look to Him as we walked through uncertainties, experienced physical and emotional exhaustion at times as we rebuilt our home, welcomed a newborn into our family and raised three sweet boys for a short season in our FEMA trailer,” she added. “It wasn’t always easy and we definitely had moments of tears and anxiety, but through it all we experienced a true peace in the chaos and saw God take care of need after need through the kindness of so many people, churches and organizations.”
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JUNE 2021
Pioneer Village came back from flood of 2011, now thriving By ANDREA JOHNSON
Staff Writer ajohnson@minotdailynews.com
Photos by Andrea Johnson/MDN
MAIN: A line can be seen on the Immanuel Lutheran Church showing how high the Souris River floodwaters reached in 2011. The church was located at the Ward County Historical Society’s Pioneer Village on the North Dakota State Fairgrounds before being relocated near Burlington. ABOVE: The Samuelson House was also relocated.
The Souris River flood of 2011 left much of the Ward County Historical Society’s Pioneer Village museum heavily damaged and left bad memories for people who dealt with the flood and its aftermath. Sue Bergan, the volunteer site director, said, “We have decided we’re over the flood” and historical society members don’t like to remember it. Every building in the museum, which was then located at the North Dakota State Fairgrounds, was damaged and one of the historic buildings, an old school house, was lost. “I would say 75 percent of our
inventory was lost during the flood,” said Bergan. “There just wasn’t time to move it.” Historical society members and volunteers were able to move some of the inventory to the Harmon House, which had been located at a higher level than the other buildings and only took water in the basement. They weren’t so fortunate with the other historic buildings at the site. “We had at least six feet of water in every building,” said Bergan. After the flood, volunteers from all over the country came forward to help restore what had been salvaged. An archival firm in Florida was able to help restore some of the museum’s precious books
and hymnals and other historical papers, said Bergan. The historical society received funding from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to help rebuild after the disaster and that funding was used to pay contractors to begin restoration work on the 13 buildings. Slowly, in the years after the flood, each building was cleaned, the historical society was able to put historic displays back into the buildings and to begin holding events at the museum again. Things had been going well but then the Pioneer Village ended up relocating to its new site along U.S. Highway 2 and 52 in Burlington. In some ways it was like starting all over again, just like in the aftermath of the flood.
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JUNE 2021 The historical society had decided not to continue battling the North Dakota State Fair Association in court in its effort to remain on the state fairgrounds. Instead, members decided on a fresh start on land that had been donated to the historical society that was located next to the Dollar General store in Burlington, on the south side of U.S. Highway 2 and 52. Dan Caswell of the historical society donated about $100,000 to the relocation effort and the DeSour Valley Economic Development Corp. made a similar donation. Numerous local organizations also have donated money or materials and given of their time to help relocate the museum and to establish it at its new site. “The move out here has just been amazing,” said Bergan, who said the historical society has received un-
Andrea Johnson/MDN
Sue Bergan, volunteer site director, plays a player piano at the Ward County Historical Society’s Pioneer Village near Burlington. conditional support from Burlington and its residents. But after the historic buildings were moved out to the new site, they discovered that they would still be
dealing with the aftermath of the flood 10 years later. “Some of our buildings had underlying flood damage that wasn’t realized at the time,” said Bergan, who
said some of those little issues keep popping up. Among those buildings was the county courthouse, the original Ward County courthouse, and the barber-
PAGE 13 shop. Some of the buildings needed brand new foundations. The height of the floodwaters can still be seen on the historic Lutheran church at the site. The surface of the vinyl siding on the church had been cleaned but the siding had not been removed and cleaned underneath. But things are looking up for the museum, which opened for the season on May 22 and will be open throughout the summer. School tours of the museum were given to elementary school children during the last week of school and a new historic exhibit honors the history of Burlington and the site where the museum now is located. The site was one the location of the Davis Coal Mine and Brickworks said historical society president David Leite, who put together the exhibit with money from a
State Historical Society grant. The former Eureka School was relocated to the site and one of its buildings has provided restroom facilities and a meeting area that the museum hopes to rent out for receptions and other events. Some funding received from the St. Joseph’s Community Foundation Twice Blessed Grant has been used to construct handicapped accessible entrances. The site has also been sodded and landscaped. Bergan said there are more plans for developing the site and they hope to eventually add a building to house the museum’s collection of antique cars and there are other plans for future improvements. More information can be found on the site’s Facebook page and on its website. at www.wardcountyhistoricalsociety.com.
At peace with the river
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Residents stay positive while waiting for flood protection By JILL SCHRAMM
Senior Staff Writer jschramm@minotdailynews.com
Joe and Heidi Super patiently looked around and waited for the right property before buying the home they thought was a great fit for their family. Next to the Souris River, it was shaded with 28 oak trees and featured an appealing view and opportunities for outdoor recreation. It was ideal for five or six years, until the flood of 2011 changed everything. Today, the Supers are back to enjoying their river view and recreation, with a house that’s largely restored from a flood that had devastated properties throughout the Souris River valley. Although they carry a mortgage they never expected to have at this point in life, they feel comfortable with how far they’ve come and are positive about the future. “We made peace with the river pretty quickly,” Heidi Super said. Jill Schramm/MDN “We love our river,” Joe Super added. He Ten years after a major flood, Joe and Heidi Super are back to enjoying is enthusiastic about proposals to use the the Souris River that runs past their backyard in east Minot. flood control project to eliminate dead loops
Former Longfellow principal remembers flood of 2011 By ANDREA JOHNSON
Staff Writer ajohnson@minotdailynews.com The flood of 2011 brought many challenges for the Minot Public Schools, including the destruction of Erik Ramstad Middle School and Lincoln Elementary and the displacement of students and damage to other schools in the district. Still, what shines through for Tracey Lawson, who was principal at Longfellow Elementary in 2011 and is now an assistant superintendent in the Minot Public Schools, is the resilience of teachers and staff. When the sirens went off, Lawson recalls talking to the school custodian, whose own home was
flooded, and marveling at his positive attitude. “He was saying, ‘It’s going to be all right, Tracey,’” said Lawson, who said one-third of staff members and one-third of the students at Longfellow at the time had homes that flooded. Lawson felt fortunate that her own home was out of the flood danger zone, but she and other staff members were dealing with the disruption at Longfellow, where the school survived but sustained flood damage. In the aftermath, cleanup crews came in to help clean up the flood damage and plans had to be made for the start of school in the fall. Staff and volunteers had fortunately helped move items to an
JUNE 2021
upper floor at the school before the flood hit. The school board decided that portable classrooms would be moved onto the Longfellow site and children would attend classes in the portables. Lawson still recalled the open house that was held for parents and students before classes started in the fall of 2011. “We didn’t even have electricity in the portables,” said Lawson. She was showing off the portable classrooms to parents using flashlights and telling them that this was where their children would be attending school. Needed classroom items were jumbled and teachers and staff worked 24/7 to put them in order, much like they were putting to-
and generally make the river more usable for recreation. The Supers live on Souris Court, where the river that runs along their backyard has been riprapped in the past couple of years. The flood control plan for the area calls for a diversion channel that will keep high flows away from their property, but it could be 15 or more years before funding becomes available and flood control structures are built. During the 2011 flood, the river spared the upstairs of the Supers’ house, which had 4-1/2 feet of water on the main level. Heidi Super said housing options were limited during the height of the oil boom so rebuilding seemed the obvious way to go. After living with friends until September 2011, they parked two smaller housing units provided by the Federal Emergency Management Agency on their property, where they lived while making the repairs. Because the upper level was spared, their three children were able to return to that space more quickly. See SUPER — Page 15
Andrea Johnson/MDN
Tracey Lawson, who was principal at Longfellow Elementary during the flood of 2011, looks over a book of flood memories in her office. Lawson is now the assistant superintendent for the Minot Public Schools.
gether a puzzle. On the first day of mined to make things right for the school, Lawson said it looked like kids. they had spent all year preparing the classrooms. They were deterSee SCHOOL — Page 15
Flood changes neighborhood
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JUNE 2021
By JILL SCHRAMM
Senior Staff Writer jschramm@minotdailynews.com BURLINGTON – Physical recovery from the 2011 flood is near for JD and Patty Karhoff of Burlington. The emotional recovery will take longer. Patty Karhoff admits she still gets somewhat anxious when there’s a lot of rain or snow. JD Karhoff said the higher levee expected to be completed just down the street gives him confidence and more peace about the future. Their house not far from the Souris River filled with more than 7 feet of water, coming within about six inches of their ceiling, during the June 2011 flood. Although they were able to remove possessions ahead of the flood, some smaller items, including irreplaceable photo albums, were stacked on closet shelves thought to be high enough to escape the water. They weren’t. “It was a very humbling experi-
Super
Continued from Page 14
“The kids thought it was a great time,” Heidi Super said, recalling how it felt like a family camping experience to them as they worked to fully get back into the house in August 2012. They received some assistance from FEMA and a Minot Area Community Foundation grant program as well as loans from the North Dakota Rebuilders Fund and Small Business Administration. They also remember the excitement of the Salvation Army truck that would come through the neighborhood, handing out food to homeowners too busy to stop work on their houses to prepare meals. Heidi Super said there was some anxiety that the
Jill Schramm/MDN
Patty and JD Karhoff stand May 12 outside the home they rehabbed in Burlington after the 2011 flood. ence. It makes you realize what is really important and what is just ‘stuff,’” Patty Karhoff said. “When you took everything out and just piled it by the street, and everybody had this gigantic, higher-than-thehouse pile out in the front yard, it’s
river could at some time flood again, but the flood control project also created some worry. “My number one worry was that we would be bought out, because we did all this work. There were plenty of early maps that showed us being gone. That gave me the most anxiety,” she said. Four houses in the neighborhood were bought out. “That was a little tough because it makes it so empty,” Joe Super said. “So many neighbors have changed.” Although they miss aspects of the pre-2011 neighborhood, the Supers say Souris Court remains a close-knit community. The older, established neighborhood has become younger, housing more families with young children. The thought that another
very humbling.” Displaced by the flood, the Karhoffs stayed with friends for about five months until they were able to move into a FEMA mobile home park, where they lived until their house was rebuilt to the extent
flood could happen before flood control is completed rests on the back of their minds, but the scarier thought is of home values falling as the cost of flood insurance rises, which is predicted to happen once FEMA finalizes new flood plain maps. The Supers are responding, though, by resuming house remodeling that had stopped at the basement. They were like many rebuilding homeowners who left basements unfinished, due to either financial constraints, physical exhaustion or both by that point. As the 10th anniversary of the flood approached earlier this year, they decided it was time to pick up the work again. After all, they are not going anywhere. “We still love the house. This neighborhood still has great features,” Joe Super said.
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Burlington levee work is restoring confidence
that they could move back in February 2014. They had gutted the house but left it untouched for a year while helping their son rebuild his house. Patty Karhoff said she wasn’t convinced after seeing the flooded house that they should rebuild. “I was ready to move,” she said. “It was awful to come back to.” They remember the Amish relief workers who came and helped tear out floors and bathroom fixtures. “They were great,” JD Karhoff said. The Karhoffs did most of the renovation themselves, with the help of family and a friend with construction skills. The basement level wasn’t quite finished as the 10-year flood anniversary neared. “We aged during the process. I think a lot of people aged a lot faster,” Patty Karhoff said. “It was hard work.” Like most area residents who weren’t required to carry flood insurance due to existing flood protection, they were compensated with
School
Continued from Page 14
Until January of the following year, students ate cold lunches that were delivered to their classrooms and ran up and down a breezeway for gym class. Donors sometimes made things special for the kids by doing things such as having pizza delivered as a special treat. After Christmas that school year, a building that was used as a temporary gymnasium and cafeteria had been constructed, and it gave kids a chance to eat lunch together and to attend gym classes in a bigger space. More stability gradually came into the lives of teachers and children as homes were cleaned and families were able to move back home or into new housing. Staff and students celebrated together every time they heard the good news. The memories of that time will connect the staff who lived through the flood forever. In the aftermath of the flood, the school district decided to build on to Longfellow Elementary rather than to rebuild nearby Lincoln Elementary. Longfellow students got to watch the construction of the new addition, which was exciting for them. Lawson said the new addition matched the old Longfellow School so well that it is hard to
only a relatively small payment from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. They were grateful for a low-interest loan through the state Rebuilders Fund, created by the Legislature to help with recovery. Among their neighbors who were not part of a buyout, all but a handful stayed after the flood. JD Karhoff said young homeowners with less home equity and seniors on fixed incomes with little ability to make repairs themselves were often harder hit financially and more likely to struggle to recover. The Karhoffs’ renovated home looks different today due to some redesign. Their 1960s neighborhood looks even more different. Eleven houses were removed through a buyout, said JD Karhoff, who served on a Burlington committee that worked on the buyout process. Not all trees came back, either, changing the landscape. Sixteen homes were rehabilitated, but six others were demolished and new houses built.
tell which section belonged to the old school and which belonged to the new. The new addition also enabled the school district to update facilities as well as increase the size of the school. Lincoln Elementary students attended classes after the flood in a temporary school facility at what was then First Presbyterian Church. They moved over to Longfellow Elementary when the new addition was completed. A new Erik Ramstad Middle School was constructed following the flood in a new location using Federal Emergency Management Agency funding. Ramstad students, who had attended classes in portables at the Minot Municipal Auditorium, moved to that new location along 36th Avenue NW. Lawson said she is sure that the students who attended Longfellow during that time remember eating lots of packaged carrots and cold sandwiches in their classrooms, but she also hopes they remember feeling secure at school, appreciated and loved at a time when so many other areas of their lives had been disrupted. It also is a reminder “not to sweat the small stuff” when new challenges arise, like the ongoing coronavirus pandemic that disrupted schools for the last year and a half.
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JUNE 2021
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