Flood Update

The Bad News:
1. The river has gone down, but it's still pretty high (39.21' which is about .4' below the last record flood). It sounds like it could take several days for the water to go down to 36 feet, which is when some evacuation orders will start to be lifted
2. A blizzard is coming in. The biggest concern is that the wind could push against the dikes.
3. Moorhead (Fargo's sister city, where we live) built a "contingency dike" in case the main dike gives way. Our house, unfortunately, is between the river and the contingency dike.

The Good News:
1. We're all safe and doing fine! Sophia is sleeping better at night here at her grandparent's house and we're all starting to adjust to life here in Grand Forks.
2. So far our house is fine...we don't even have any "seepage" in our basement! Our neighbors have decided to stay with their home despite the evacuation orders, which is lucky for us because they've been able to check on our house!
3. The street flooding that was happening when we left hasn't gotten any worse around our house...in fact, there is aweful street flooding in our neighborhood, but we happen to be surrounded by two of the roads that aren't flooding very badly!
4. The weather here is cold, which means there is no snowmelt (we have about a foot of snow, with more on the way) going into the river.
5. We've been able to spend a lot of time with family here in Grand Forks:)

So, to sum it up, we're not out of danger, and things are still fairly stressful. I spend about 2 hours watching local news every morning! And of course it's hard to live 90 miles away from our own place...we just want to be home and have everything be normal! But we are cautiously optimistic. Fargo-Moorhead has done an amazing job, and they are still protecting the cities with the same energy and intensity as the day the flooding started. We're hopeful!