FARGO, N.D. — For days, this city has hunkered down for battle with the swelling Red River. Volunteers shoveled sand into bags, heaved them onto forklifts and piled them high to shield waterfront churches and bungalow homes. It was a way to cope with potential catastrophe -- unlike an earthquake, a flood can be anticipated and stopped.
But by late Friday, the 12-mile man-made barrier was complete. Sandbagging wound down. Some neighborhoods, both in Fargo and in neighboring Moorhead, Minn., were evacuated. Nursing homes were emptied. About 1,700 National Guard troops marched into town.
Fargo settled in to wait, and to worry.
The river is expected to crest Sunday, possibly as high as the city's main 43-foot-high dike. Authorities said they had no plans -- and little time -- to make the barrier higher.
"Is that a gamble?" Mayor Dennis Walaker said. "We don't think so."
Sub-freezing temperatures have kept runoff from inundating the waterway, said Patrick Slattery, a National Weather Service spokesman. But it's expected to remain swollen for days, which could weaken the makeshift barriers.
Officials discouraged traveling for much of the day; thousands had already fled the city. Flurries dusted boutiques with darkened windows and empty downtown streets. Tractors and backhoes whirred. Anxious residents had little to do but ponder.
"It's terrifying thinking about what comes next," said Steve Wennblom, 52, who was helping St. John Lutheran Church clear its basement of choir robes and hymnals.
In Fargo, a city of 90,000 with a picturesque red-brick downtown and suburban chain stores, folks are by necessity conversant in water. The plains -- so flat that some locals joke God sat here while creating the world -- are often soaked this time of year, drenched by spring rains and melted snow.
Radio hosts flip like a toggle switch between farm market reports and flood threats. People recall a 1997 deluge with the same clarity as the Sept. 11 attacks. Many folks have pinpointed how high the river can go before their basements become fetid pools. ("I'm 39," they will say.)
On Friday, everyone tracked the river's height with a scientist's precision.
5:15 a.m.: 40.32 feet.
8:30 a.m.: 40.52 feet.
12:45 p.m.: 40.67 feet, and slowly rising.
Joel Davy, 62, an architect who lives just south of a neighborhood under voluntary evacuation, bagged sand this week until his eyes were bleary and his voice hoarse.
