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Thousands flee Fargo ahead of menacing floodwaters
(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-03-28 11:51

Volunteers pass sandbags to add a foot on top of a permanent earthen dike on the southside of Fargo, North Dakota that protects the city from flooding on the Red River March 27, 2009. [Agencies]

Authorities in Fargo and across the river in Moorhead -- a city of about 30,000 people -- expanded evacuations Friday across several blocks. About 2,600 households in Moorhead -- about a third of the city -- were asked to leave their homes. Hundreds more in Fargo were asked to evacuate.

Some residents were roused from their sleep around 2 a.m. Friday and told to leave after authorities found a leak in a dike. They expected to be able to patch it securely.

More than 100 inmates were taken from the county jail in Fargo to other lockups in the region, and Moorhead planned to evacuate the police station because of encroaching floodwaters. Sen. Byron Dorgan said Northwest Airlines was sending two jetliners to move hospital patients to safer areas.

The effort to fortify flood-prone neighborhoods took place around the city, with officials building a contingency dike system as a second line of defense should the river breach riverside neighborhoods. But some residents were left between the two sets of dikes.

"There are people who are angry about being on the wrong side of the dike," said Tim Mahoney, a Fargo city commissioner whose home is in one of the "wrong-side" neighborhoods.

"We have a 500-year flood that we're combatting, and we think we're doing as well as we can," Mahoney said.

Residents in another of those neighborhoods placed pumps in their yards in hopes of keeping water out of their homes.