Word(s) of the Day: Organized Chaos. With the announcement yesterday of the 38 foot crest moved up from Mid-April to Late-THIS WEEK, meetings and radio talk shows all had a sense of urgency for action.  Rightly so, many volunteers will be needed to fill and place sandbags and construct dikes this week if the crest will occur this Friday, 4 ½ days from now!

Quote of the Day: “Sandbags to 40 feet, clay dikes to 41” from Moorhead City Engineer Bob Zimmerman at the 7:00 a.m. Technical Planning Team meeting held at the Wastewater Treatment Plant Conference Room.  The meeting is held daily now to plan, update, and disseminate information to all team members and especially the Zone Leaders and Zone Team members that will be points of contact in the 8 Moorhead neighborhoods (zones).

Current River Level (and Current NWS Forecast):

• The current river level is 25.93 feet at 6:15 pm today (Monday, March 15, 2010)
• The previous river level was 22.83 feet at 5:15 pm yesterday (Sunday, March 14, 2010)
• The current NWS forecast remains at 38 feet cresting Friday or early Saturday – no change announced in the 1:30 p.m. NWS teleconference.

Official Press Releases On the City’s Website: Today when the city cancelled the 6:00 p.m. neighborhood meetings that I planned on attending, I verified what I heard from someone by checking the official blog from the City of Moorhead.  It is the place to go for official news from the city concerning the flood – and with things moving as fast as they are now, it may be a good idea to check it every day.  I was interviewed on the radio twice today and I mentioned the www.cityofmoorhead.com/flood (which has been completely updated today). I also mentioned the official blog site from the City of Moorhead at (http://blogs.cityofmoorhead.com/index.php/CityBlog/): The top blogs off that site were:

o        Governor Pawlenty activates National Guard to assist in flood preparations (3/15/10)

o        Moorhead Volunteer Center is open (3/15/10)

o        Need Sandbags? (3/15/10)

o        Zones 3, 4, 5, and 8 Information Meeting Cancelled (3/15/10)

o        Tonight’s Flood Meeting on Moorhead Cable Channel 12 (3/15/10) (which is outdated now)

o        Volunteers Needed (3/14/10) (3/15/10)

o        City of Moorhead Announces Flood 2010 News Conference Schedule (3/14/10)

o        Homeowners are reminded to Discharge Sump Pumps Outside (3/12/10)

o        City of Moorhead & Clay County to Announce State of Emergency Declarations (3/09/10)

New City of Moorhead Flood Website (JUST COMPLETED): I was actually working on this journal and trying to get the items off of the City’s blog for the previous notes (above) and stumbled onto the new website coming from the old website, so I was probably one of its first hits. J  Check the new website out at www.cityofmoorhead.com/flood for a new look and information concerning the flood.  One feature I liked was the news release section under the tile “Announcements” which contains a “Moorhead Morning Report” and another section called simply “News Releases”.  I’m guessing that the entries that used to be on the blog will now be on the “News Release” Section.  Stay tuned.  Check out the site!

Sandbags to 40 feet and Clay Dikes to 41: The Tech Team discussed this issue for a while.  They know there will be confusion over these two levels – imagine a clay dike next to your home that your neighborhood has to build a sandbag dike to connect with.  The heights will be off by a foot.  The reason for the 40 foot sandbag dike is that the official National Weather Service (NWS) prediction is for 38 feet (range of 37 to 39 - the official range, I guessJ), anyway, civil engineers want two feet of freeboard over the prediction, so 38 plus 2 is 40.  How about the clay dikes?  Well, those are built to 41 feet because if you building one, you might as well build it a foot higher since it costs a little more to build them a foot higher and coming back in short order to add a foot to all of them around the city would be a doubling of effort that we won’t have time to do later.  Incidentally, the clay dikes (levies) are also constructed with a base able to be added on to in order to obtain a height of 44 feet (again, best to do it now versus trying to rework the base later when more height is necessary).

Meetings of the Day (typical day?) in Moorhead (and a couple of references to Fargo’s as well): There are many meetings that happen during a flood, and for good reason.  I believe that clear goals improve performance and you have to communicate to insure that the goals are understood.  In an emergency, there is so much activity going on that you have to over-communicate to make sure people and other resources are used as efficiently as possible and your efforts get the best results possible.  Some of the meetings of the day for me at Moorhead Public Service (MPS) included:

• The 7:00 am City of Moorhead Technical Team meeting mentioned above.
• The 8:00 City of Fargo meeting that I listened to on my way to the MPS Dispatch.
• The 8:45 City of Fargo Press Conference (I listened to on WDAY 970).
• Our 9:00 MPS Flood Operations Meeting led by Jared Heller, Water Distribution Engineer and Flood Coordinator.  We keep this one as short as possible, last year we did two a day during the height of the flood.
• The Moorhead/Clay County Emergency Operations Center Opened today (email from EOC Commander Shannon Monroe, Moorhead Assistant Police Chief) and will have their first EOC meeting tomorrow at 9:00 which will conflict with our meeting.
• A City of Moorhead Coordination Team meeting that happened today (sometime this morning) that I missed because the tech team meeting went long and we (MPS) had our meeting at 9:00.
• The City of Moorhead Press Conference at 10 am.  City Manager Mike Redlinger did a great job of getting the information out in a clear, concise fashion and I think it is great that this meeting occurs every day during the emergency at a regular time.  All local news media appeared to be present at the conference.
• Interviewed on radio station KFGO 790 by Sandy Buttweiler at 12:10 pm
• A NWS teleconference meeting discussing the river forecast at 1:30.  Jared Heller attended – no change in the forecast.
• The City of Moorhead Zone Team Coordination (and training) meeting for the zone personnel that will be deployed to the zones all over Moorhead in the afternoon
• Interviewed again on radio station KFGO 790 by Sandy again at 5:20 pm
• The neighborhood meetings set for this evening at 6:00 p.m. were cancelled and people were encouraged to volunteer.  Go to Nemzek Hall at Moorhead State University Moorhead (MSUM) or just go to the river (but for traffic reasons, please park a little ways away from the river).  Rivershore Drive on both north and south sides of I94 need sandbaggers.
• Insert a couple of more regular work meetings in there and I’m all meeting-ed out for the day.

National Weather Service (NWS) Deterministic Forecast: I attached that forecast from NWS to this email and further info is available on the NWS website http://www.crh.noaa.gov/ahps2/hydrograph.php?wfo=fgf&gage=fgon8&view=1,1,1,1,1,1&toggles=10,7,8,2,9,15,6.  The graph is basically unchanged from yesterday.

Picture of the Day: I’m sorry, I missed a good picture of the day.  MPS had a water main break near the river that I drove by and should have taken a picture of.  I even had my good camera with me.  I took another lower quality picture with my cell phone this morning at the press conference.  Sheriff Bill Bergquist is speaking, City Manager Mike Redlinger is against the right wall.  The press conference is in the old GoMoorhead Store.