The Daily News

Richland County and Wahpeton officials gathered Monday at the county Law Enforcement Center to debrief a March flooding event that affected farm land and homes statewide.

Proactive flood mitigation briefly organized city and county resources, leading officials through a smooth transition when actually fighting the flood. The fight didn’t come without its lessons, though, which officials focused on during the hour- long meeting.

“I’m sure there are areas that need improvement, but I just can’t say enough good about what went on and how it was handled,” said Wahpeton City Councilman Meryl Hansey. “An overall look at it, everything went pretty smooth.”

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Harris Bailey, Richland County auditor, said although the emergency operations center (EOC) worked well after it had been running for awhile, it was difficult to disperse the right amount of information to the public when there was a boil in the north side levee. Bailey acted as a public information officer during the flooding event.

“I probably gave out some bad information because nobody was talking to us, so I was telling people it wasn’t all that bad. As far as I knew it was just a weak spot in the dike,” Bailey said. An incident commander would have made the process more efficient, he added.

Wahpeton City Engineer Randy Nelson understood that situations calling for a rapid response are more difficult to manage. Yet the situation was managed well, he said. People were advised of the threat but it was not over- dramatized.

“I think if anybody thought their lives were at risk, the phone calls would have been made immediately saying ‘we need to evacuate,'” said Wahpeton Police Chief Scott Thorsteinson.

According to many of the officials, there is room for improvement in organizing volunteer efforts.

Richland County Emergency Manager Brett Lambrecht indicated at one time or another there was difficulty acquiring and directing the volunteers. Detours to most locations throughout the county proved to be troublesome when transporting volunteers to and from the EOC in Wahpeton.

A secondary EOC in the northern end of the county could have helped the effort, Bailey said.

Filling sandbags could be a more efficient process too, said Alderman Martin Schmidt. The arrival of a North Dakota National Guard operated machine allowed the city to fill four sandbags at a time, a step up from the shovel-filled bag.

“Once we got a hold of that machine, I mean, we went like crazy. We really filled a lot of bags,” Schmidt said.

Lane Wateland, alderman, said he’s working with Camp Grafton, a base that operates the four machines in the state, to prepare blueprints, as the city is looking at the possibility of building a similar machine.

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