Come Hell or High Water in Fargo

I just want to say how much I admire the people of Fargo, North Dakota, who came to together in the face of the rising Red River that threatened to destroy their town, to sandbag day after exhausting day. 

The most vulnerable were evacuated; the others stayed to fill more sandbags.  The river crested at 43 feet.

To most those crest numbers mean nothing, but to the residents of Fargo, a few precious feet represent the difference between staying dry and losing a home to the muddy, murky river.
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The skies above Fargo are consistently humming as Army helicopters and Coast Guard choppers circle the area using infrared cameras to survey the dikes in search of the slightest leak, or worse, a total breach.

Non-essential businesses are closed, except hardware stores, which have extended their hours—some to 24 hours—to give the people of Fargo a chance to stock up on generators, pumps, rubber boots and other essentials.
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Fargo Mayor Dennis Walaker revealed in the morning flood meeting that federal officials had urged him to evacuate the entire city, but he resisted. If the people of Fargo were not here to fight the water, the city would have been lost.

But those manmade levees and sump pumps worked. 

Maybe you have to have lived in the Fargo area to fully understand the tenacity of a people who, faced with two blizzards during the course of record flooding, still shrug and say, "It could always be worse."
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A Fargo pastor summed it up well: "This will be one of those markers that we will all talk about for the rest of our lives — how people helped each other out."

Big Picture has lots of the Red River flooding

Steven Browne, a new transplant to Fargo, was there. 

So I go up to the volunteer fireman who's coordinating efforts on the floor.

“What should I do?” I ask.

“Grab a shovel and start filling,” he answers quite logically. “Three full shovels in each bag.”
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Jeez, will you look at that girl! You can see the exhaustion in her face, but she doesn't complain.

Come to think of it, nobody's complaining. These kids are having a ball. They're doing meaningful work to help save their town, and they're doing a durn good job of it too, without supervision and without slacking an inch.

There's an old guy over there working alongside kids who look like they could be his grandchildren. There's a woman with a grade-school kid working together, filling bags.

Some 6000 volunteers endured temperatures below 20 degrees in the race to save their city and their homes.  What a remarkable community.  God bless them all.

As one citizen said in the comments to the photos at The Big Picture , "I  bagged, my back hurts, my neck hurts, my hands hurt. But God, I've never felt so good!"