With temperatures forecasted to reach 50 degrees as early as Saturday, the Polk County Commissioners Tuesday signed a resolution declaring a state of emergency in Polk County in anticipation of increased snowmelt and runoff. The commissioners, who meet the first, third and fourth Tuesday of each month are not scheduled to meet for another two weeks, and the county must declare a state of emergency before they are able to request state aid should the need arise.
Polk County Emergency Manager Jody Beauchane expects the county to be experiencing heavy runoff by next week. “We think that this time next week we’ll be in full runoff mode,” said Beauchane. “My gut tells me we’re going to have a lot of overland flooding especially in southwest Polk, where there is a lot of snow along those farmsteads. Most likely both of the cities of East Grand Forks and Crookston are going to have moderate flooding coming from the rivers.”
While hopes are the flooding won’t reach the potentials forecasted, Beauchane said the goal is to be prepared. “We just want to be prepared,” said Beauchane. “If one of the cities has any kind of levee issues or failures then because the county declared right away we can reach out to the state to get resources. For example, the National Guard with generators, power, people, they’d help patrol the levees. By us declaring we’re just getting ahead of it and it doesn’t hurt us to declare.”
The National Weather Service is reporting that peak river levels have likely occurred in the southern Red River basin at Wahpeton/Breckenridge with the rest of the basin seeing peak water levels in the 75 to 90 percent range of the March 15 probabilistic guidance barring significant precipitation. That range would be the river level of the Red Lake River in Crookston cresting between 22.5 and 24.3 feet and in East Grand Forks/Grand Forks the Red River would crest between 47.5 and 49 feet.
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