Furious effort to raise levees in N. Dakota city (AP)

MINOT, N.D. – Crews worked furiously Thursday to raise earthen levees in a last-ditch effort to protect at least some neighborhoods in Minot from the rising Souris River, even as officials acknowledged they can't stop significant damage to North Dakota's fourth-largest city.

Trucks and loaders carried clay and dirt to waiting Bobcats that sped to and fro, spreading and tamping the material atop levees that already reached some 15 feet high. The workers and National Guard members were the only people to be seen after as many as 10,000 residents, or about one-fourth of Minot's population, were evacuated to safety.

Parts of the city were already flooding. One trailer park near the river was under several feet of water. Much of Thursday's effort focused on protecting critical infrastructure, including sewer and water service; more evacuations could become necessary if either is knocked out by flooding.

Mayor Curt Zimbelman said the sewer and water situation was "under control" but being monitored.

Besides raising levees, Lt. Col. Kendal Bergmann said the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was drawing down water above the Lake Darling dam now so that later releases don't have to be as big.

"To protect the city from the water that is coming down, well, we can't get to it in time," Bergmann said. "People will be flooded."

The Souris, swollen from rain and snowmelt, was expected to peak Sunday or Monday several feet above its historic high set in 1881. Gov. Jack Dalrymple warned that releases planned to begin on Thursday would be dramatic.

"In two days' time, it will be a rapid, rapid rise," Dalrymple said.

The river, which begins in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan and flows for a short distance though North Dakota, was all but certain to inundate thousands of homes and businesses during the coming week.

"There are 300 people in shelters and the others have found places with family, friends, some rentals," Zimbelman said. "But for the long term it's going to be a very difficult situation."

Some evacuees found themselves scrambling for places to stay in a region that boasts few vacancies in even the best of times, thanks largely to the state's oil boom.

Aquira Fritt, 23 years old and 7 1/2 months pregnant, planned to spend the night in a van with her boyfriend and 5-year-old son.

"There are no hotel rooms, no campers to rent, nothing," Fritt said Wednesday, shortly before emergency sirens blared to signal the evacuation deadline. "It's very stressful and it's very annoying."

Her son, Azzyah, considered it an adventure.

"He thinks it's a campout," Fritt said. "He's happy he gets a chance to use his sleeping bag."

Allan McGeough, executive director of the Minot chapter of the Red Cross, said a few hundred people showed up at the city's homeless shelters Wednesday night. Both he and Zimbelman expected that number to increase, but Zimbelman said a majority of people have opened their doors to evacuees.

"I tell you what, North Dakotans are pretty good people," Zimbelman said. "They're finding places either with friends or neighbors or family. Because there's not much room in our hotels. They're full with the oil people."

The oil boom in western North Dakota has taken off in the last two years, leading to an influx of thousands of workers, some of whom stay in Minot for months at a time and drive 70 miles west to the rigs. Plans are in place to construct so-called man camps to house the workers.

Wendy Howe, executive director of the Minot Convention & Visitors Bureau, said Minot's 1,820 hotel and motel rooms averaged 80 percent occupancy through May on the strength of workers from the oil field, tourists from Canada and the city's location as a regional business hub.

Two shelters have been opened, one at the city's auditorium and the other at the athletic facility dome at Minot State University, McGeough said. They are equipped with water, food, mental health professionals and nurses, and were nearing the combined capacity of 1,000 Wednesday night. McGeough said others could be opened.

Maj. Gen. David Sprynczyantyk, the North Dakota National Guard commander, said the Guard is working with the federal government on a long-term housing plan for the evacuees. Red Cross volunteers from as far as California were arriving to help, and nearly 500 National Guard soldiers were assisting with traffic control and the evacuation.

Minot is less than 60 miles south of the Canadian border. It was founded in the late 1800s during the construction of the Great Northern Railroad. The economy relies extensively on agriculture, as well as Minot Air Force Base and the recent oil boom in the western part of the state.

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Associated Press writers Robert Ray in Minot; Wayne Ortman in Sioux Falls, S.D., and Jeffrey McMurray in Chicago contributed to this report.

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Most Missouri River levees holding up to surge (AP)

By JOSH FUNK and GRANT SCHULTE, Associated Press Josh Funk And Grant Schulte, Associated Press – Thu Jun 16, 11:37 pm ET

HAMBURG, Iowa – The surge of water released from dams holding back the rain-swollen upper Missouri River reached deeper into Nebraska and Iowa on Thursday, headed swiftly toward Missouri and a soggy summer.

Almost all the levees along the way have held strong. There have been no significant injuries or deaths. Now comes the weeks of fretting and worry over whether levees in several states will continue to hold until the river starts to drop sometime this fall.

"The ongoing threat will be to the levees, which were designed to hold back water for a short period of time," said Derek Hill, administrator of Iowa's Homeland Security agency. "We don't know how they will perform if the water level remains high for several months."

Water from one levee breach, five miles south of the small town of Hamburg, Iowa, reached the partially evacuated community late Wednesday. There were no immediate problems with Hamburg's new 8-foot-tall backup levee, which officials scrambled to build during the past two weeks and where about 5 feet of water is eventually expected collect by Friday.

Upriver in South Sioux City, Neb., officials scrambled earlier this month to build a 7,000-foot-long levee to protect the city's northwest side. City Administrator Lance Hedquist said that levee is holding, and the floodwater hasn't even reached it yet in some places.

"Everything looks very good," Hedquist said. "Both levees are strong, healthy. I think our community is safe and well protected."

About six miles away in Dakota Dunes, S.D., a levee partially collapsed Thursday. The damaged section of the south levee was repaired and steps are being taken to prevent further erosion. But Gov. Dennis Daugaard said the partial collapse shows the potential for levee failure is a real danger.

Flooding along the Missouri River has already caused significant damage in Montana, North Dakota and South Dakota over the past month, but no significant injuries or deaths.

The river has been rising for weeks as the corps releases increasing amounts of water from its upstream dams to make room in reservoirs for heavy spring rain and late snowmelt. Releases at Gavins Point Dam in South Dakota hit the maximum planned amount of 150,000 cubic feet of water per second Tuesday, and the corps doesn't plan to reduce the amount it's releasing from its dams until August at the earliest.

National Weather Service hydrologist Dave Pearson said the river levels are expected to remain high, and any significant rainfall could push the river higher.

"Any rain we get below Gavins Point is unregulated and flows right into the river," Pearson said.

That's why officials still predict the river downstream of the six dams could still swell to levels 5 to 7 feet above flood stage at most places in Nebraska and Iowa, and rise as much as 10 feet above flood stage at some places in Missouri.

In Nebraska and Iowa, the river remained about 1 foot below those levels on Thursday.

Col. Bob Ruch, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers district commander in Omaha, said there are no plans to deliberately breach a levee along the Missouri as the Corps did during flooding earlier this year along the Mississippi River.

Among the reasons, he said, is there is no place behind Missouri River levees for the water to go.

"Omaha and Council Bluffs, you can literally see water from bluff to bluff," Ruch said. "The space is just not available and there is no plan to do so."

In Omaha, officials announced Thursday an evacuation plan for the unlikely possibility of widespread flooding in Nebraska's biggest city. Officials said roughly 2,700 Omaha residents would have to evacuate in that worse-case scenario.

Assistant Omaha fire chief Dan Stolinski said such an evacuation order would only be issued in the event of massive levee breach.

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Funk reported from Omaha, Neb. Associated Press writers Timberly Ross in Omaha, Dirk Lammers in Sioux Falls, S.D., and Chet Brokaw in Pierre, S.D., contributed to this report.

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Online:

National Weather Service river forecast: http://water.weather.gov/ahps2/index.php?wfooax

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Omaha District: http://www.nwo.usace.army.mil

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Kansas City District: http://www.nwk.usace.army.mil

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South Dakota levees tested as Missouri River waters rise (Reuters)

By James B. Kelleher James B. Kelleher – 1 hr 8 mins ago

CHICAGO (Reuters) – Levees hastily erected along the Missouri River in central South Dakota were holding on Sunday as flooding caused by heavy spring rains and a melting winter snowpack continued to raise the waters toward record levels, officials said.

But the pressure on the earthen berms in Pierre and Fort Pierre, and the anxiety of area residents, will continue to increase through Tuesday, when the water being released at a dam just above the two towns reaches its peak of 150,000 cubic feet (4,247.5 cubic meters) per second -- nearly double the 85,000 cubic feet per second being released last week.

Officials have not yet ordered mandatory evacuations in the state. But as many as 3,000 Pierre and Fort Pierre residents, and more than 800 of the 1,100 homes over 250 miles away in Dakota Dunes, are threatened.

So far, the releases from the Oahe Dam have raised water levels along the Missouri in the state more than a foot.

"All the levees are holding at this hour," said Nathan Sanderson, spokesman for the Southeast Incident Management Team, which is warily watching the creeping floodwaters in Dakota Dunes in the extreme southeastern part of the state.

Sanderson said the evacuations there continued to be voluntary but added that officials were "encouraging people to leave."

Police have tried to reassure wary residents that their homes will be watched and access to their neighborhoods controlled.

"We know citizens are extremely worried during this time," said Union County Sheriff Dan Limoge.

"We hope to ease some of their concerns by assuring them that their homes will be vigilantly watched around the clock until this situation has passed."

RECORD SNOW, RAIN

Record snowfall at the Missouri's headwaters this winter and record rainfall this spring have swollen the Mississippi tributary and pushed the dams and reservoirs along it that are designed to control the usual seasonal surge this time of year to their limit.

So to protect them, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has been slowly opening up the dams and reservoirs upstream, gradually lifting river water levels downstream from North Dakota and South Dakota,

The U.S. Coast Guard has closed a more than 180-mile (290-kilometer) stretch of the river from near Sioux City, Iowa, south due to high water.

Farther downstream, the river is beginning to swell beyond its banks in Nebraska, Iowa and Missouri and officials braced for evacuations and built levees. The maximum planned release rates could push the river up to seven feet above flood stage at Sioux City, Omaha and Kansas City.

The result is a creeping problem expected to continue into July, adding to an already record season of flooding in the Midwest, where the rising waters of the Mississippi River caused forced evacuations and intentional inundation of thousands of acres in April and May.

The Missouri is expected to continue to rise rapidly in Pierre until Tuesday, when controlled releases from the Oahe reach maximum levels -- where they may hold for weeks.

In Montana, the Corps has increased water flows from Fort Peck Dam and widespread flooding of tributaries has forced hundreds of evacuations and inundated several smaller cities.

The Missouri River basin forms the northwest section of the Mississippi River system that stretches from the Rockies to western New York in the north and funnels water down through Louisiana to the Gulf of Mexico.

(Additional reporting by David Bailey in Minneapolis; Editing by Jerry Norton)

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