Day 1

It's only Day 1, and I still can't believe we're at it again.

Sandbagging today was interesting. The first day seems to be the most rough - no one has the groove down yet, and the new students are lost and unfocused. I'm just thankful that so many people remember our awesome techniques from last year and are ready to start right where we left off!

Today, I sandbagged with an awesome ten year old kid named Blake. We were working on his house, and it was incredible to see him lifting thirty-pound sandbags for four hours. He kept saying he just wanted to make sure his mom wouldn't lose her home. And I kept thinking, "It's your home too, pal."

Things are going well so far. The river is up to twenty-eight feet, and it's worrying that it is rising faster than we can sandbag. Oh well, we do what we can, right?

Tomorrow is sandwich-making day! Hurrah.

Here we go again!

Alright! My sandbagging/volunteering duties begin tomorrow.

The flood prediction is that the river will crest at 38 feet on Saturday. That is ridiculously high, but it's a breeze compared to some in the past. Here are the recent record levels:

2009: 40.7 feet

2006: 37.18 feet

2001: 36.70 feet

1997: 39.55 feet

The good news is that we're looking to end up right in the middle of these past record flood levels. The crest is predicted to be lower than 2009 and 1997 - the two greatest floods in history.

Let's do this!

Hey, remember that time?

I find it crazy to think this whole ordeal is not over yet. What once seemed a glamorous volunteering opportunity quickly transformed into a disaster zone. We are no longer living in an area of despair, but the damage remains prevalent. We have quite a bit of work to do cleaning up - it seems like every day, I find a new dike! They are seemingly everywhere. It will be interesting to return to the area in August and find out how many repairs are complete.

The Concordia campus is controversially known for both its liberal and conservative leanings. It seems as though the campus is split - conservative economically, liberal socially. However, I have observed a small, yet growing, group of socially conservative students. This group dresses appropriately, acts appropriately, and presents itself appropriately overall.

Our entire community has turned socially conservative in terms of swearing and topics of discussion. We have a new "f" word here, and it is not allowed in conversation. While this subject ran our lives for several weeks, it is now considered obnoxious and unacceptable to bring it up at the dinner table or in lecture.

For over a week, all I thought about was sandbagging. I did not consider my daily worries such as homework, friends, family, etc. I woke up each morning and did not question my schedule for the day - nothing could matter more. All I could think about was when I would be able to get out and sandbag some more. I was constantly considering which areas of town would need the most help and which would be the quickest route there. I had the number for Sandbag Central memorized and random addresses scribbled on the palm of my hand. My clothes were covered in mud - the socks I put on each morning were rock hard, saturated with clay and sand. I did not eat a whole lot, because most of my meals came from the back of Red Cross trucks. I went five days without showering, and the same period without washing my hands. I was repulsive, but dedicated.

For weeks, this permeated our discussion to an unbelievable extent. Anyone - friend, foe, near, or far - would talk about the crest prediction, the height of the contingency dikes, the number and weight of sandbags, etc. Now, on the other hand, a sudden hush has come about the area. No one wants to discuss what happened. If a speaker decides to lecture about it, members of the audience will get up and leave. If anyone attempts to bring it up in conversation, friends shudder and have a countenance of disgust.

It is hard to talk about, yes. I understand. However, I feel it is imperative for us to keep others in our thoughts and prayers. As an ex-psychology major, I hope I learned something about the field. We cannot keep pretending it did not happen, and we need to talk about it to help ourselves move on. Repressed memories hurt more than regular memories, and we can stop that from happening. It was an intense two weeks, and we are not done yet. Let's keep fighting!

P.S. Can you believe I wrote this entire post without using the word "flood?" Oh wait, I just did! Darn.

"3.5 million sandbags...that's a lot of sand!"

This website, written by a fellow sandbagger and blogger, is absolutely hysterical. I hope you take the time to look at it and that you get as much of a kick out of it as I did!

Visualizing the 3.5 million sandbags

The sun was shining high and I walked barefoot down the road

I finished a ridiculous amount of homework in the last few days, so I thought I'd be all clever and do something fun tonight...clean my closet! Little did I know what fun it would end up being.

I started by pulling out all the random things that have been layered along the floor of the closet. I found quite an assortment of items - most curiously, a plastic bag which was tied shut. Quite odoriferous, I was terrified of this bag. When I opened it up, I realized why. When I went home for our impromptu flood break, I kindly packed my Red-River-coated clothes. They were absolutely repulsive, and I am forever indebted to my parents for washing them for me! However, I forgot to clean something...MY SHOES!

In this plastic bag were my running shoes. Well, they will certainly never be running shoes again. These things looked awful - they were coated in about a bajillion layers of sand, clay, mud, and grossness. I did not know where to start.

I decided to take them down to the wash bin in the laundry room and tackle the big guys. I started by lathering them with laundry detergent and taking my scrubby to them. When I filled my left shoe with water, I promptly turned it upside down to dump it out. The water that came out was black. This is after washing them, mind you. I decided this would call for desperate measures.

I'd heard a rumor about washing shoes in the washing machine. I turned to the internet and found lots of handy articles about the best way to go about this. However, I did not have the nerves to actually put my shoes in the school machines (they already make a thumping noise and sound like they're murdering your clothes...sometimes they even flood! and we don't need any more flooding). Right now, my shoes are sitting outside just looking disgusting. I'm sorry for anyone who may walk by.

Hopefully the cleaning fairy will appear and in the morning, I'll look outside to see sparkly clean shoes. I am dying to go running again!

Didn't it rain, children?

You might find yourself wondering, "Jeepers! How much more can this girl possibly write about a FLOOD!?" Well, SURPRISE, there always seems to be more one could say about a flood.

Today, Team Evap reunited for another sandbagging adventure. Unfortunately, most of the team was at home for Easter, so we were only six strong. However, we were a mighty six.

We headed toward Rivershore Drive. As its name insinuates, this place is creepily close to the river. Or the river is creepily close to this place. Anyway, we had a lot of work to do. After the first crest, the river had ripped through several of the neighborhood's dikes (many of the houses had over six feet of water in the basement). The National Guard promptly rebuilt the dikes and then added a 7-foot clay dike right down the middle of the street. I felt pretty bad for the homeowners on the wrong side of the dike - shows how much faith the city has in the sandbag dikes.

Regardless, sandbagging today was a much more pleasurable experience than I had a few weeks ago. The overall sentiment was much more relaxed and easygoing. We were still racing the river, but nowhere near the extent we had in the past. I appreciated losing the anxious, rushed feeling.

One of the campus periodicals compiled the following facts about the flood. I found them highly entertaining. You will presumably find them entertaining as well!

"The number of sandbags that volunteers in the state have filled as of Wednesday was 4.3 million is [sic] equal to:

• The height of 1,720 Empire State Buildings if the bags were stacked one on top of the other.
• A vertical stack of single bags would reach from sea level into space.
• Placed end-to-end, the bags would stretch from Bismarck to Oklahoma City.
• The weight would be equivalent to about 360 Boeing 747's.

The 10,920 miles of [clay and sandbag] dikes equate to almost half the distance around the world as well as twice the distance from New York to California.

The 10,245,000 gallons of water pumped equates to more than 16 Olympic-sized swimming pools."


Some crazy facts, eh? I also appreciated many of the articles in "The Concordian" this week. I think my favorite part was the "Gadget of the Week," which is always an up-and-coming hot technological item. This week, the staff featured the Sump Pump! Wonderful.

Oh, happy day!

Lower predicted second crest = way super happy.