YEAR AGO: Water Rushes In - KXNet - Bismarck/Minot/Williston/Dickinson

YEAR AGO: Water Rushes In

One year ago today, the 12,000 evacuees in the Minot area received even more bad news:
water rushing down from Canada was now expected to peak at an amazing 29-thousand CFS - almost six times the level the city's original levees were built to handle.
The highest water was still a few days away - and that gave the city time to work on the secondary dike that was protecting hundreds of homes in northeast Minot.
Meanwhile, water began gushing over levees in low areas of the region - such as Terracita Vallejo, where we visited Wayne Moe's home and found a waterfall developing.

(Wayne Moe, Terracita Vallejo Resident) "It started about one o'clock like that and now, 12 hours later, it's turned into this."

We were starting to get birds-eye views of the devastation - courtesy of National Guard helicopter rides.  
The frequent high-level looks at the region became favorites of viewers hoping to catch glimpses of their homes as the water rose.
And on the ground, officials were asking people to stay off the roads, to allow dike-building and emergency traffic to move freely through town.

(Mayor Curt Zimbelman, City of Minot) "This is a very serious situation and vital to our cities flood fighting effort. Please do not travel in the city unless nesses."

One year ago today traffic was getting tight - and water was beginning to run ALL OVER the valley --- as the flood of 2011 spread out.