Minot City Crews Remember May 2011 | Video

Rich Wisniewski | 5/18/2012

The rain falling on Friday doesn`t give the same fear as it did this time last year. With room in the upstream dams, any moisture from the sky is not a big deal. But in May last year, city officials, residents living along the river, and the media were constantly looking at water levels and hoping things would slow down.

On Friday, KMOT caught up with former Minot Public Works Director Alan Walter to get his reflections about this time last year. June may be the month people remember, but Walter remembers May of last year being just as difficult.

He says city crews were setting up the Emergency Operations Center and directing corps workers to build up the dikes to handle the high water levels which were roughly 1549 feet at the Broadway bridge.

"We were comfortable with everything. We kept the river contained. I mean, we had some issues with storm sewers but we were getting that taken care of. It was a problem but not a big problem. We were fighting it daily and maintaining."

Walter says that the city had five separate battles with the Souris River; four they won, and the last one, of course, they lost. They were the result of the massive rainfall in June from Canada that eventually descended on Minot and other communities.

COMMENT ON THIS STORY