The City of Crookston Public Works department, with help from some students and staff at the University of Minnesota Crookston, began sandbagging Riverside Ave this morning. Public Works Director Pat Kelly said they hope to be done early this afternoon. “Our only intention is to sandbag Riverside right now,” said Pat Kelly. “That will get us to the level of protection we’re shooting for right now. We’re thinking we’ll hopefully get this done early afternoon.”
Kelly said while they continue to wait on an updated flood outlook water shouldn’t reach the sandbags until the river hits 26 feet. “Right now we’re going three rows and once we get about another 50 feet we’ll go four rows high,” said Kelly. “So it will probably be somewhere between 5,000 to 7,000 bags.”
According to the hydrologic data collected by the National Weather Service in Grand Forks the Red Lake River has been steadily climbing since Saturday afternoon from 5.6 feet to 8.12 feet as of 10:45 a.m. this morning. The action stage for valve closure begins between the 12- and 13-foot marks with flood stage, the point at which Crookston would naturally flood without levees, at 15 feet.
