"But we kept our spirits up, and we just thought 'you know it's gotta end sometime'. But here we are looking at it again." says Shannon Stanke. After weeks of fighting the flood in 2011, the Stanke family of West Fargo are starting to worry the coming spring will bring more hard times.
Many homes and families in the Red River Valley could be affected once again by major spring flooding. Earlier today Pat Zavoral talked about Fargo's Plans. "Probably in the next ten days we will begin the sandbagging operation."
Shannon remembers back to her family's struggle two springs ago. "We didn't have sewer, we didn't have water, we didn't have anyway to live a normal life here." Their home is on the outskirts of West Fargo. The Sheyenne floods their property some springs, and in 2011 just when they didn't think it could get worse, more bad news came.
"Our garage caught on fire, and so when that happened the electricity went out, and the pumps were down, and then we were getting water down stairs." Shannon remembers back. The weeks of water made them evacuate their animals, and now the Stankes are worried what to do with them, because of the flood forecasts.
"There's a 10 percent chance of it going higher than 09, and in 2009 the ten percent probability is where we ended up, so we are planning for the worst and expecting the best." Zavoral says.
But other than the river flowing into their property, they also have to worry about all the snow that's in their yards. Some banks are six feet tall. That's why the Stanke's hope they have a snow melt this spring, because all this melted snow will be extra water around their house.
"So we worry well when that melts, what's going to be coming from the south." Shannon says. They worry because it could be another spring with another flood. Shannon continues, "You know a moderate flood would be hard, a major flood would be pretty depressing at this point."
The Stankes plan to have sandbags ready in case of high water this spring. They're hoping in the future to build a permanent dike around their property, or to be bought out by the city.
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