Sunday, March 29, 2009

U.S.A., North Dakota

I took the train out of Fargo on Saturday night.

Fargo restarted around-the-clock sandbagging efforts on Sunday.

Saturday, March 28, 2009

U.S.A., North Dakota, Fargo

Radigan Neuhalfen

U.S.A., North Dakota, Fargo

The train crossed over the Red River twice, at four a.m. -- once going east into Minnesota, and then again on the same bridge as it backed into the station in Fargo. On the bridge, it looked like the train was rolling right on the black water, which is at the top of the sandbagged dikes. Treetops stick out of the water; it was eerily beautiful. Everything at four o'clock a.m. is eerily beautiful.

Walking from the station downtown, pass the Fargo Linoleum Co., which has a sign on the glass front door: “Closed Friday and Saturday for Flooding.” Sandbags stacked about a foot high around the doors of a restaurant. Eighteen-wheeled trucks are running downtown; they look commercial. It is cold, and there is snowpack.

Friday, March 27, 2009

U.S.A., North Dakota

Driving from work at 4:30 this afternoon, heard Fargo city officials on the radio stating that the water level had significantly dropped, and that consequently sandbagging operations were going to halt at 6:00 p.m. today. Going to Fargo regardless; I already purchased the train ticket.

At the train station, the conductor asked where I was going as he took my ticket. Fargo. Well, he said, at least the station in Fargo is this side of the river. This train might not be running any further than Fargo tonight, he said, the water's only six inches from the tracks.

Thursday, March 26, 2009

U.S.A., North Dakota

I booked the Amtrak ticket, then joined the Fargo-Moorhead Flood Volunteer Network group on Facebook, which at that point had 4,716 members. I called the volunteer information line and said that I was going to volunteer, and she told me to go to the Fargo Dome. I said I'd be in Fargo on early Saturday morning, and she said, oh, call just before you go out to volunteer so that you can be sent to the highest priority location at that time.

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

U.S.A., North Dakota

And the blizzard just hit. The office closed at 11 a.m.; everything's closing. Snow day.

Saturday, March 14, 2009

U.S.A., North Dakota

The American border guards shoot anyone who tries to escape from the Land of Freedom.

Friday, March 13, 2009

U.S.A., North Dakota

I have been to Canada on several memorable occasions. You know, it was funny, how as young kids in North Dakota, we thought of ourselves as living at the edge of the world, because the US map just ends at the border, and Canada, if anything, was that great unmapped space that you would have to drive through to get to Alaska.

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

U.S.A., North Dakota

I got very drunk last night and because I had visions of trying to walk home and ending in a snowbank and frozen solid because it is well below zero degrees Fahrenheit every night still and drunks freeze to death commonly as they always have in North Dakota, I called my brother to pick me up at the enormous nondescript cluttered house where DIY punk-rock shows are put on in the basement and he said he'd be there in eight minutes and he was there in eight minutes.