Area residents help sandbag

By Jeff Hage (Contact) | The Daily Journal

Published 12:00 p.m., March 24, 2009

BRECKENRIDGE — Nick Mariotti opened his email Monday morning and knew exactly what he had to do.

Like many in the Fergus Falls business community, Mariotti received word by email that the city of Breckenridge was in trouble.

Waters from the Red River were rising and there were not enough volunteers to lay sandbags along homes in order to protect them from the rising river.

So Mariotti and 14 other Fergus Falls residents headed to WestRidge Mall at 1:15 p.m. Tuesday, climbed on a bus donated by Ottertail Coaches, and headed west on Highway 210.

“They needed help, and I thought there were more important things to do than being in the office, said Mariotti, who works at Affinity Plus Federal Credit Union in Fergus Falls.

Don Westra, owner of West Tool and Design, had the same thought.

When he saw the call for help, he immediately issued a challenge to his employees. If they offered to head to Breckenridge for an afternoon of hard labor Westra would cover their wages until they returned Monday evening. “They needed help and I knew it would take a lot of bodies to get the job done,” Westra said.

Five West Tool employees took Westra up on his offer.

“The hardest part was trying to figure out how we were going to clear our schedule out,” Westra said.

Guy Harstad was one of those employees.

“I was caught up at work and knew they needed help, I knew they were short,” Harstad said.

The Fergus Falls contingent arrived in Breckenridge at about 2:15 p.m. They immediately exited their bus and were shuttled to two homes on the Red River where foundations were being threatened by the rising waters.

They jumped in a line where sandbags were being passed from person to person from a flatbed truck on the street to a wall of sandbags in the backyards.

Heavy rains Sunday night and into Monday morning made the yards a sea of mud. The workers were soon covered from head to foot in mud and water.

“This is a big, wet muddy mess,” Mariotti said.

A group of about six high school students from Rothsay were in the line covered in mud from a day of hard work on the line.

“We felt like they needed help so we volunteered,” said student Jackie Gruneweld.

The Rothsay students arrived in Breckenridge at about 1 p.m. and were planning on staying until about 4 p.m.

“This is a lot of work and the conditions make things a challenge,” said student Ashley Bilden.

But conditions weren’t as bad Monday as they were during the flood of 1997, according to Laurie Mullen of Fergus Falls-based Western Area City County Cooperative, a volunteer Monday.

Twelve years ago Mullen coordinated the gathering of equipment for the city of Breckenridge through her office. Monday she found herself in the trenches building dikes from sandbags.

“From an email I received I knew they needed help,” Mullen said. “They needed help so we came.”

“It was the neighborly thing to do,” she said.

Mullen wasn’t the only one of the 15 Fergus Falls volunteers that had gone through the sandbagging process before. Both Westra and Mariotti volunteered in 1997, as well.

“It was worse then,” Westra said.

Mariotti agreed. When he got off the bus and say the flood damage for the first time his initial reaction was that 1997 was worse.

“I thought it wasn’t as bad here as it was in 1997 — at least not yet,” Mariotti said.

“I hope it stays that way,” he said.

That was unlikely, according to the latest flood data rolling in Tuesday morning.

The Red River in Breckenridge and neighboring Wahpeton was expected to crest Tuesday evening at 19 feet — close to the record crest of 19.4 feet set in the flood of 1997. Flood stage in the two cities is 10 feet.

National Guard soldiers from North Dakota and Minnesota, along with street department workers and fire departments, have been patrolling the dikes protecting Wahpeton-Breckenridge. The dikes can withstand water levels of 21 to 23 feet.

---

WOULD YOU LIKE TO SHARE THIS STORY?

---