Week 12 Blog ... Still Flooding

The Fairfield’s made the news again … and of course it’s related to flooding.

This past weekend Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Disaster Assistance Employee Ken Jordan, for Region 8 toured the Sheyenne River Valley and made his way onto the Fairfield Ranch, or lake as it has appeared the past couple weeks.

The Valley City Times Record covered the story tells that because President Obama has declared this area a federal disaster area, FEMA will cover 75% of costs accrued by local governments for diking, sandbagging, police and sheriff's offices. Dave Lowry, a FEMA public affairs officer based in Arizona indicates that if there is enough dollars claimed by individuals in the area, they can get assistance also. No dollar amount of damage is listed to quality. I believe it has to do with the numbers effected as well as the dollars but I couldn’t find anything specific about that.

The two federal employees and various Barnes County Officials toured “Columbia Grain facility, damaged when high water caused soybeans in a hopper to swell, dislodging the feeder which loads grain unto railroad cars.” It is a business that has never had water issues before.

The group made their way down the valley and that’s when they talked with my husband, Dan. We live on the farm where Dan has lived his whole life. He is part of that land. And for the first time in his life, he’s talked about leaving it. We’re not as young as we were during the last two or three floods and the exhaustion of continued checking water and pumps will last a few more weeks. We’re both ready to relocate in order to avoid this ever again. If that means leaving this land that is in Dan’s blood – and mine – that’s what we’ll do. So ... if you know of about 60 acres of higher ground looking for an owner, we’re in the market.