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 10,245,000 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.
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