Volunteers pack Fargodome to combat rising river

FARGO, N.D. -- The Red River continued to rise Thursday, hovering dangerously close to bridges and spilling over sidewalks and parks.
Fargo-Moorhead community members and others in town to help them filled the Fargodome – and thousands of sandbags -- on Thursday night, as they had been for days.
Volunteers, ranging in age from grade-schoolers to grandparents, prepared, filled, stacked and transported sandbags. The Salvation Army fed and hydrated volunteers.
A sign at a nearby elementary school pleaded community members to head to the Fargodome to help fill thousands of sandbags still needed to protect the town from the river’s predicted record-setting crest, expected this weekend.
Inside the event center, D.J. Guerrero set up his own post at the entrance to the sandbag-filling area, he said, to direct people and to steer away gawkers.
“It keeps this thing working,” he said from his seat overlooking the crowd of busy helpers. “It’s necessary.”
Guerrero said he’s spent 30 hours at his spot between Wednesday and Thursday, and that he’ll stay “’til they kick us out.”

D.J. Guerrero directs volunteers to the sandbag stations on the Fargodome floor Thursday.

MATT MEAD, DAILY

He playfully used his cane – which he called “The Equalizer” – to tap bystanders who clogged the walkway to the main floor sandbagging area to take pictures.
Like many others, Guerrero isn’t certain of his south Fargo home’s fate.
“I can’t do anything about the house,” he said. “If it’s going to go, it’s going to go.”
But Guerrero is glad to spend his time helping coordinate sandbagging efforts in the Fargodome. He offered, “I would rather give up my house and maybe save half the town.”
Mark Janssen drove to Fargo from Andover, Minn., on Wednesday to aid flood relief efforts, especially because he has relatives in the area.
“It was important to help, even though it’s far away,” he said after working through Wednesday night and half of Thursday. “It’s very meaningful.”
The last major flood in the area was in 1997, but the river has already exceeded that previously destructive level of more than 39 feet. Grand Forks was most heavily hit by that flood, and Janssen said he felt guilty about not helping his relative in that area during that disaster.
Meanwhile, schoolteacher Cathy Speral meandered through stacks of sandbags with a Sharpie marker as her husband continued to pile the bags on.
On the white sandbags, she wrote “Thanks” and “Build That Dike,” among other things, in an effort she hoped would boost the spirits of volunteers working on the front lines, stacking the sandbags at water’s edge.
The Sperals’ home is surrounded by water, but it’s shallow enough that it likely won’t do too much damage, she said, crossing her fingers.
“I think we’re going to be OK,” Speral said. “But a lot of people aren’t going to be OK.”
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