While I was not in Bismarck when the flooding and threats of flooding were occurring, I was kept informed of what was occurring by various means.
Mayor John Warfard held numerous press conferences along with Mayor Tim Helbling of Mandan, an official from FEMA who was assigned to Bismarck to monitor the impending flooding damage, and officials from the demolitions company that was brought in to assist Bismarck/Mandan in their fight to demolish the ice jams that were building on the Missouri River. Governor John Hoeven was also televised on several occasions to speak to the communities to keep everyone informed of the latest developments in relation to progress made by the demolitions team in blowing up the ice jam threatening the cities of Bismarck and Mandan. In addition to the press conferences, the local television and radio Medias kept the public informed via newsprint and radio announcements. The local newspaper, The Bismarck Tribune, published daily updates along with maintaining a photo journal of all that was occurring in both communities as well as surrounding communities that were also impacted by the spring flooding along the Missouri River. They also maintained a separate webpage devoted to flooding updates and news. And of course, I was in touch with many family and friends to hear first-hand accounts.
I will be interviewing some of the people that I know living here in Bismarck/Mandan about how effective the methods used during the Bismarck Crisis.
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The crisis on the Missouri River was pretty huge. For the most part, I can't remember when this kind of crisis hit so close to home. This has impacted just about everyone and remains to be our worse case of nature's wrath. I only thought that mother nature must be pissed. Though, to see people such as Governor Hoeven come down and speak with people was really uplifting and let me know that out state officials were very much worried as we all are. Even though the flooding has hit its highest and is on the slow down fall, we have a lot to look forward to in the future months to come.
ReplyDeleteIt is good to see that not everyone did Valley City or VCSU. I didn't hear much about Bismarck except the blowing up of the ice jam. I think it is neat that Governor Hoeven was one of the spokespeople because he is a very important person in North Dakota who experience the flood first hand. It will be interesting to see how your research differs from the research of the town of Valley City.
ReplyDeleteI didn't hear much about the Bismarck/Mandan areas flood fight but I did hear a bit about having to blow up the ice jams with dynomite. I thought this was actually kind of cool and would have liked to see them actually do this. When I was reading your blog you mentioned the local newspaper kept a photo journal of the changing area. I think that is a neat feature and the pictures can say more than words about how bad a sitation was. I hope to see more photos from the flood of Valley City and the newspaper would be a great place to start.
ReplyDeleteThe flooding that occurred in Bismarck was very announced by the people that were involved in fighting the flooding. I heard a lot about what was going on down there and the ice jams could have made the flooding a lot worse. I heard that they had to evacuate all of the prisoners out of the ranch due to the water levels. It would have been pretty neat to see how they blew up the ice jams though.
ReplyDeleteThis sound slike it will be a good crisis town to write about. This is the first one ive read that is not about the town of Valley City. It will be interesting to see if commmunication was similar between the two towns and maybe what was done differently. It sounds like you have found out many different sources that helped with the communication process. I do believe that the flooding over there occured a week or so before Valley Cities starting getting serious. One thing I remember hearing, is that Bismarck officials ( Or the guard) were using explosives to BLAST the ice jams..... that would of been sweet to see
ReplyDeleteGood blog