One Year Ago Today: Levees Hold - KXNet - Bismarck/Minot/Williston/Dickinson

One Year Ago Today: Levees Hold

With thousands of people evacuated from their homes in Minot - the news got much brighter one year ago today.
On June Second, 2011, Minot Mayor Curt Zimbelman delivered some very good news at a press conference.

(Curt Zimbelman - Mayor of Minot) "It has been determined that the river probably crested at 1554.02 and it has dropped four tenths of a foot since."

That level - 1554.02 - was the fifth highest on record in Minot, about one foot lower than the 1969 crest that so many people remember as the worst in the city's history.
So why was the crest a foot or more lower than expected?
Officials said the river found unexpected places to spread out, west of Minot in the Boy Scout Bridge area.
In addition, we were told the bridges along the river had helped act as dams to slow down the arrival of high water.
Still, people who'd left their homes were told the river would need to drop about 2-and-a-half feet before they'd get the OK to move back home.

One year ago today - June Second, 2011 - was a day that gave people a ray of hope that the battle against the Mouse River might be won.
Over the next few weeks, we'll see how that hope was erased by the end of the month.