Yes, you read that right. Not only has the Red River Valley been dealing with a record breaking flood, we have not been dumped on with about 14  inches of heavy wet snow, and it’s not done yet.  And of course, this heavy wet snow has to melt, which goes to the river, which makes the levels rise again. We just hope they stay within normal levels and we don’t have the big threat that we’ve just made it through.

We got out the other day while it was sunny and took some images from around the flood areas. I thought I’d share a few here but please visit my Flickr feed for the full set.

A look at the river at The Dike from atop the Bank of the West  parking ramp in downtown Fargo.

The Hjemkomst Center from the NP Avenue bridge.

Looking south at the Red from the Main Avenue bridge – The Dike and it’s added sandbags can be seen in the background.

Lindenwood Park as seen from i94 headed west.

The fields south of town around i29 are frozen.

For those of you not down in this area of town, this is what we’re dealing with at Discovery Middle School and Centennial Elementary School. They’ve dug up the grounds to use the dirt/clay for diking in the area.

And then it snowed yesterday and today – scenes from my backyard:

I haven’t been out around the area since it snowed but I’m sure there are some really gorgeous areas. I really wanted to get back down to the Main Avenue bridge and photograph the snowy trees with the high water but I was respectful of the no travel advisory and stayed home.

We’ve done ok here throughout the weekend. We stayed home for the most part, watching the river levels and listening to the reports. I feel so sad for those who lost their homes and who had to evacuate and for Oak Grove School in Fargo. I’m sure that everyone will recover from this in time, our city works hard to regroup and get back on track. It still amazees me at how fast people respond to the need for help and put forth their efforts to make things happen.

My kids are getting a little stir crazy. Thankfully they had a full driveway to burn off some energy today! The teachers will certainly have their work cut out for them when classes resume.

My thoughts are still with those battling flood issues and hope that things get back to normal for them soon.

Can it be the end of the month already? I think there has been so much going on the past few weeks, days are running together, but yes – it is the last day of the month! That means you have until midnight tonight to enter the blog contest for March to win a complimentary session to be used any time in the next 12 months! All you have to do is comment to the entry post. You can find that HERE. Just say hi – and you’re entered!

Also, the recent weather happenings are putting a damper on getting spring sessions going. There are limited dates available and I’m sure there will be some rescheduling as we melt this snow and deal with the flood aftermath. Please schedule soon to  ensure a session!

There isn’t much new to talk about this morning. The city is still going strong, volunteers are turning out to help and the river is on a slower rise, but it’s still rising.

I didn’t sleep much last night. I’m a little bit more nerved out than I had been. I’m trying to have faith in what the city officials are saying and hoping there is no need for evacuation but today I am spending time in my house getting the important things out of the basement and up to the upper level. We’ll be getting our evacuation necessities in place – just in case. I don’t want to be scrambling last minute if something goes horribly wrong with the dikes. The river is just about a foot under what it was at record breaking levels in 1997. We should meet that sometime today. So far things are looking OK for the city but then we hit uncharted territory so everyone is a bit on edge.

Fortunately the cold has slowed things down some. Rural areas are still struggling very much.

I’m so thankful that we’re all well and dry. We’ll be back out later today helping the community once we get our house ready if we can. I’m trying not to watch the news too much, I’m trying to keep my anxieties low. But I need to stay informed so we turn it on here and there and I check things on the internet sites.

I have gotten some calls and emails that are business related. I think its fair to say that we are all a little preoccupied with the current situation so my return time is very delayed. I’m finding that I can personally get back via email easier than phone since I’m trying to leave phone lines open for family. Please email if you can and I can reply back at midnight if need be! I will certainly be getting back to everyone, it will just take a little time. Newborn inquiries, please call and leave a message! Our time is limited and I do not want to be unavailable.

I hope everyone else is doing well. I have some clients along the river and in critical areas. I send them all my best wishes. I know you’re exhausted and working so hard to save your homes.

My continued THANK YOU’s go out to everyone doing what they can to help fight this flood and to protect our city. We are forever grateful.

I’m not sure if I’ll have any pictures today but we’ll see what turns up. This page is currently my main place for updating for friends and family. I’m not updating my personal blog right now. There are some updates on Facebook but they are the feed from this site and some random little updates.

Against my better judgement, I ventured out on today’s icy roads to feed a McDonald’s craving and a water level curiosity. Hannah and I made the quick drive, snapped a few images and came home. Later in the day we had to go into Moorhead to pick up Connor and Dillan. That adventure took way longer than usual because of the backed up traffic. Here’s what we saw today.

A very significant rise from Monday to Wednesday

The water is now climbing up the hill in the park

The bridge is very faint in the background but when you find it you can see how much nearer the water level is

This one Hannah shot out the window as we crossed the bridge from Fargo into Moorhead on I29. This is a very, very wide river right now.

Just a little bit further, you can see the street sign, almost burried. There is a road under there.

Coming back to Fargo from Moorhead, a shot of the river just before Lindenwood Park. The top left cornere, the river should be containted between the rows of trees. No water belongs on teh right. It’s up very high!

The news tonight brought some stressful points. No mandatory evacuations yet but they might be getting close. My mom left her apartment in Osgood tonight as a precaution as her building back s right up to the cooly there. She’s hanging out here with us. Tomorrow we’ll be moving some items upstairs just incase. I really don’t think we have anything to worry about but I’d rather be safe than sorry. And I don’t like to have to rush to do things like that.

Despite getting all of that snow, I was so pleased to see so many people out working the relief efforts today. I have family members and friends emailing to check in and commenting about seeing us on the news and how awesome the community is pulling together.  It defintely takes a community to beat this flood.

I had planned to take Hannah out of school yesterday to do our share of community service to help fight the flood. Then Discovery Middle School decided to take their 8th graders out as a group to help fill sandbags, so I went along with them to “Sandbag Central.” We had a great 4.5 hours. These kids worked so hard to get so many bags filled. All the while they had a great time. We laughed and joked around and kept right on filling, tieing, hauling, and stacking bags. I’m so proud to have worked with these kids and to hear them talking about how they’re saving houses. They really were a light in a gloomy day. I’m thankful to have been a part of that. I want to give an extra huge THANK YOU to the Salvation Army and the Red Cross for all of the support they are giving. We had sandwhiches and bars, chips, cookies, coffee, hot cocoa and bottled water. They are providing so much to all of those who are giving their time to help fight the flood. It really is a whole community effort and they are really stepping up. There are indivudals, work groups, middle school, highschool, and college students all banding together. I know there are many more involved in all of this though I’m just not sure who specifically. Please comment and let me know and I will certainly give credit and appreciations to other groups or individuals as well. Comment to share your experiences and stories as well. I’d love to hear all about it.

We took a few snapshots, though not too many as we were too busy working. Here’s just a couple.

This area was empty when we first started and I took this just as we were leaving at 1:30pm.  Many more pallets were already hauled away through our process. This is some awesome work by all volunteers who were there during this time.

A wide shot to show the area we were working in – piles of sand in the lot and many shovels and bags. These people were turning out full bags with great speed.

One of Hannah’s freinds snapped this one of part of our small group of friends. We stuck together most of the day and had an excellent assembly line system going on. That’s Hannah in green and silly me behind her in the hat.

Hannah caught me bringing back another load of bags that were ready for filling. She was the shoveler, I was the bag holder most of the day. We both did some tieing and hauling to break it up some but we think we turned out about 200 bags just ourselves. I mention this because I’ve been asked a few times how many we think we did. And yes, they are so heavy! 30-50 pounds each depending on how full they are. We’re very proud to have been able to help. I can only imagine how many the whole group turned out if everyone averaged about the same. The kids should certainly be proud of themselves as well!

I haven’t been back down by Lindenwood Park since Monday to see the changes in the levels. This is something I wanted to do but right now I’m not sure that traveling over there is the best things to do.

Sadly, our weather has taken a terrible turn. It was a gorgeous partly sunny and 45 degree day yesterday. As I went to sleep last night, it had started to rain. Somewhere in the middle of the night it turned to ice and now it’s still snowing with 5-8 inches expected in the F-M area today. Schools are closed and I’m certain the relief efforts are hindered. Volunteers will be decreased today. The city officials think they will have enough help to make more bags but getting them distributed will be harder. At least the cold will bring a slight slow down in the river rising but at the same time it’s more precipitation to eventually add to the levels.

While this is bound to be a record breaking event on many levels, one that is heartbreaking and scary, I’m still amazed at what this city can do in a time of need. Many people just don’t understand why we live here or what keeps us around when there are so many other places in the country to live. But I’m sure I speak for many others when I say that the community here is unlike many others. It’s a great place to raise my kids and to be a part of things that are good. The long winters and impending floods leave something to be desired for sure. But for right now, I’m very proud to be from Fargo, North Dakota and to see what this community can pull off.

Ironic – my last entry was about the blizzard and this one is about the flood. Totally directly related, these weather events are consuming everyone in the community.  Things don’t always happen here on a small scale. Weather, it generally happens big. This year is no exception.

The Red River is rising very quickly. A couple weeks earlier and definitely much faster than anticipated. Just a week ago we had so much snow we didn’t know what to do with it all. This week, the snow is almost all gone, remnants of large pushed piles are all that remains in most places. This was a very quick melt. The experts are saying this one is going to be worse than the flood of 1997 where the river crested at 39.95 feet. [18 feet is considered flood stage]. This year they’re saying at least 41 feet. 2 more feet of water is a helluvalotta water! [see some images here]The city is already in great commotion – there are flatbed trailers full of sandbags given a police escort to the needy areas, students have been released from classes to help with the sandbagging efforts, the city is rallying to keep the city from major flooding as much as they can. While all of this is so unpredicatable, there is one thing that is certain, there is going to be so much water everywhere. Smaller rural communities are already having big issues.  I worry for friends who live in these areas and are working around the clock to save their homes – watching that water rise and praying that everything holds strong. It’s exhausting even to me, and I’ve only been watching from a distance. Tomorrow, Hannah and I head out for our flood fighting efforts. We will join the sandbagging and do what we can do for the day.

I love portraiture photography. But I also love photojournalism. I seem to get out and about every year as the river rises to document the different levels. Despite it being so destructive, I find it fascinating and awe inspiring. All of my photographic internals are screaming at me to get out there, in the middle of everything, and document what is going on and what people are doing and how they’re working together. But I worry that I’m being selfish and photographing when I should be helping. So I hope that I can balance this out and do some sandbagging tomorrow and then also get some images taken later in the day and further in the week. I know they want people and gawkers to stay away but those internals of me are screaming!! I promise I’ll behave, but I do want to do some documenting for sure.

After some errands today, one of which was to pick up some bottled water just incase the supply needs to be restricted, I drove over to Lindenwood Park to see the rise. Tihs is an area that most people are familiar with and can easily judge the grandure based on what the park looks like. A clay dike was already laid down the road so I could not enter the park. I pulled into the church parking lot and walked down where I could get a decent view and snap a few images. I certainly don’t want to get in the way of anything or be where I’m not supposed to be. So I snapped in just a couple minutes and then made my way home.

This is a common scene around the area – there are a lot of ROAD CLOSED signs everywhere. Here you can see the dike they laid.

Here you can see where the bridge is raised and the distance to the water. I suspect that by the time the river crests, the bridge will be consumed.

You can see the water is already reaching the upward slope of the park. This was about 9:30am today. The levels have already risen another couple of feet so I’m sure the site this evening is markedly changed. We know once that slope starts to disappear, there is a lot of flooding going on.

If you’re familiar with the area, you’re likely able to see where the river is supposed to be, and the bridge off in the distance. The Red is definitely making it’s rise.

For those of you who are local, please do what you can to help fight the flood and help your neighbors and neighborhoods.  For more information and contact phone numbers, please visit the Flood Information page.

Living in North Dakota for more than 15 years you’d think I’d be used to this. I expect snow in February but I hope for a nice thaw and ease into spring through March. So it’s no surprise that my mood took a nose dive this week when we got blasted with so much snow and wind and bitterly cold temperatures. And while there are days that I feel like I could be more than happy to never see snow again, there are times when all of that snow looks gorgeous and there are some amazing formations from the massive amount of wind that whips across the plains.

The crews were out in force around here – streets were being plowed before I was awake the following day, driveways and sidwalks were being cleared. It’s amazing to see a whole city burried under a foot of snow pull it together and get things workable in a matter of hours. I know there are cities around the country that would be paralyzed for days if they went through what we just did.

I didn’t get the images I would have liked. The wind blows the snow so hard that it’s not reflected in the camera the way it is with our own eyes. It just can’t capture the gravity of it all in a still image. And by the time I got out and around  the day after, the beauty had been replaced with huge piles of snow. Though, as their own grandeur, I captured a few of those!

Here’s to sharing a few of the images I took the past few days. [none are of my son's unrelated black eye for anyone who has seen those on Facebook!]

From our ground level basement windows – the trampoline in the back yard among drifts.

The snow drift blew between the houses and went OVER the fence!

After venturing out, we found those awesome piles of pushed up snow – images courtesy of my daughter, Hannah – out the passenger side window. No images were taken by me while I was driving.

And notice that just hours after the storm broke and moved on, we have gorgeous clear blue skies.

The Corgis – they love the snow! They don’t care that the drifts are ginormous, they take them on like any Great Dane could!

I’m really looking forward to this weekend when the temps rise above freezing and hoping the bulk of the power melts away. My arms and back are sore from the shoveling this year. I’d like to have a long enjoyable spring, without much rain or flooding. I hope everyone else stayed warm and cozy the past few days!

It’s March – Spring is supposed to be right around the corner! Sessions will start filling up as everyone is excited for the warm weather, green grass, and fragrant blooms. Call or email soon to get that desired time that you want!

In the meantime, enter to win this month’s blog giveaway – a complimentary session!

Here’s the lowdown:

For those of you new to the blog and wondering what this is all about, let me give it to you here.

Each month I post a new post where the contest is being held. All you have to do is make some comment to the post and your name is automatically put into the drawing for a complimentary session! It’s so easy! And we’ve certainly had some fun sessions come out of these contests and plenty more on the way.

What do you comment about? Anything! Just say hi, share your thoughts, tell me about the weather, your family, ask me a question, or anything you want.

Are there any rules? Well, of course there are – but nothing major. If you live outside the Fargo – Moorhead area and you win, the session time is complimentary but the travel is not. We’ll have to discuss that when necessary. All complimentary sessions can be redeemed up to one year of the month you won. So if you won in February this year, you have until the end of February next year to redeem your session.

Comment away! I want to see a lot of names in the drawing this month!

My mom left me a message today to take my camera down to the Fargo Theater. After I picked up all the kids from school, we made a little drive to see what was going on. I’m still not sure of the reason [though I plan to find out tomorrow] but I’d imagine it has something to do with the Fargo Film Festival. The 9th annual event opened today and it’s such a joy to see some unique talent awaiting the arrival of festival goers. My kiddos wanted to ‘pet’ them but since we respect the art and don’t touch the art, they climbed on the snowbanks in front of them and waddled like penguins too!

CONGRATULATIONS!!!

I’ve drawn the 2 names for January and for February and would love to congratulate Jen and Melissa! They’ve each won a complimentary session to use within the next 12 months! That’s so awesome! I have already photographed Jen’s family and look forward to working with them again. I’m sure her boys have grown so much in the past few months since I’ve seen them. And Melissa has entered several times now and this month was her month!