Ten years ago, in 1997, the Red River of the North flooded, and the small cities of Grand Forks, North Dakota, and East Grand Forks, Minnesota, experienced what came to be known as the flood of the millennium. The two cities, divided by the Red River, are connected by three bridges. Grand Forks is home to the University of North Dakota (UND) and to the UND School of Medicine and Health Sciences.
The Flood of the Millennium
Spring flooding is not unusual or unexpected in the Red River Valley. The valley's residents are noted for their valiant efforts, year after year, in holding back the waters. Because of heavy rainfall in the autumn of 1996, the soil had a high moisture content when winter's hard freeze occurred, one of the conditions that creates susceptibility to flooding in the spring. The amount of snowfall and the rate of the spring melt are other determining factors.
Winters in North Dakota are not for the timid, and the winter of 1996-1997 was particularly harsh. Eight blizzards of major proportions battered the northern Midwestern states. The first was Blizzard Andy in mid-November, and by the time Blizzard Hannah departed on April 6, there was no question that major flooding was ahead. The eight blizzards accounted for 98.6 accumulated inches of snow. Blizzard Hannah, standing alone, was a climatic event of a lifetime, beginning with rain that turned to freezing rain, with the ice causing power lines to droop. Hurricane-strength winds and snow followed for the next two days, snapping power lines and poles and causing a wide loss of electricity throughout the region. The additional moisture from Hannah is credited with ensuring a devastating flood.1
Twenty-eight feet is flood stage for the Red River of the North at Grand Forks. On February 28, the National Weather Service (NWS) predicted a 49-foot crest, the same level as the river's crest in 1979, which was a 100-year flood. On March 28, the NWS stuck to its forecast of 49 feet. On April 5, despite the added precipitation from Blizzard Hannah, the NWS was still saying 49 feet. The community rallied to prepare for the impending flood, sandbagging the dikes to 52 feet-just in case. The city set up sandbag central, and the university ran shuttles from the campus to the center and back, transporting the volunteer students, faculty, and staff. Employees were provided release time from work, and students were encouraged to give as much time as possible. The response was overwhelming, and almost everyone who was capable was volunteering in some way in the flood effort. It was not until April 14 that the NWS changed its prediction, now saying the crest would be 50 feet; and on April 16, the prediction was changed again, to 50.5 feet. But the new predictions were too late and still not accurate.
By April 17, the Red River stood at 50.96 feet and the NWS raised it prediction again, this time to 51.5 feet. That same day, the dike broke in a low-lying neighborhood and all of the residents were evacuated. By the next day, two additional neighborhoods were ordered to evacuate and the last of the three bridges connecting the two cities was closed because of flooding. On Saturday, April 19, Grand Forks ordered evacuation of most of its residents. The water plant had failed, flood water was freely running down the streets, the hospital had transferred its patients and closed, the public and parochial schools were closed for the year, and the UND president had cancelled classes for the remainder of the semester. By noon, more than half of Grand Forks and virtually all of East Grand Forks were flooded. Just as the community was thinking that things couldn't get much worse, they did. Fire was reported in a downtown building, and by the time it was controlled, 11 buildings had either been lost or heavily damaged.
On April 21, the Red River crested at 54.11 feet, 26.11 feet above flood level. It is significant to note that the crest was five feet higher than the original prediction of the NWS, the prediction used to plan and prepare for the flood. Throughout the days preceding the evacuation, none of us in the flooding area had believed that we would lose the battle with the river. We had expected some flooding in low-lying areas and perhaps some water in basements, but we believed that if we worked hard enough, we would prevail. We always had in the past. For this reason, plans were lacking for what to do if the city flooded. Most of us left Grand Forks and weren't quite sure where we were going, and we had no idea where our colleagues and students might be.
The Impact of the Flood
It is difficult to adequately describe the loss and damage caused by the flood of 1997. Some of the numbers are straightforward. Estimated damage to the two cities alone exceeded $1 billion. Water entered about 11,000 homes and businesses in Grand Forks and all but 27 single-family residences in East Grand Forks. Fifty thousand residents of the two cities fled from their homes. Businesses were ruined, jobs were lost, and much of the basic infrastructure was badly damaged. The most difficult loss, however, was the defeat of the flood-fighting efforts. As one resident noted, If it had been about possessions, we'd have moved everything out a week before.1 Instead, for more than two weeks, huge numbers of volunteers hoisted sandbags or walked the dikes, or provided food or child care for other volunteers during every waking moment when not at work or in school. The volunteers were of all ages, from all walks of life, and they worked around the clock, often at the sacrifice of their own property, to save the city. It was very, very painful when the fight had to be abandoned.
The University and the Medical School
The damage
UND, including the medical school, is located more than two miles from the river, but the land is very flat and once the dikes gave way, the river rushed freely overland. The university actually got water from three directions: overland from the river, underneath from storm sewers, and from the English Coulee, a normally small stream that bisects the campus. When the university could no longer provide core services (water, sewage, electrical), the president cancelled classes for the remainder of the semester. Seventy-two of the 240 buildings on campus were damaged by flood waters, and over 10,000 students were evacuated. Major infrastructure damage was incurred in the university's 69-mile underground systems: steam, water, electrical, telecommunications, and storm/sanitary sewer. Total direct flood damage to the UND campus exceeded $45 million, and the total financial impact was fixed in the $75 million range. Another major impact was the loss of nearly 1,000 students who decided not to return.
A sewage lift station near the medical school failed and the lower level of the medical building filled with raw sewage. Eventually, the building took on between five and seven feet of water. Luckily, the decision to move stored records from the basement to higher floors had been made and implemented about a week earlier. Also, a team of seven basic science faculty members assumed responsibility for watching the emergency generator and working with plant services personnel to make sure it continued to run. Their diligent effort through the course of two weeks is credited with preserving valuable laboratory animals, energy-dependent experiments, and laboratory equipment.
The timing of the flood for the medical school actually was fortunate in relation to our medical students. The second- and fourth-year students all were on required rural rotations of three and four weeks, respectively. Designated as phases III and V, the rotations comprised the final clinical experiences of the academic year. All third-year students were taught on the Bismarck and Fargo campuses at that time, so the only medical students in Grand Forks were those in their first year. Many of the others, however, had the majority of their belongings in Grand Forks. Once the evacuation of the campus was completed, a major task was to locate all of the students and to establish a plan for completing the first-year curriculum. We needed to make sure all the students were safe, and we needed to let them know how to contact us. And it's important to remember that technology was quite different 10 years ago-much less sophisticated, and more paper dependent.
Steps to recovery
A virtual university was established about a week after the university closed, in a building on the western edge of the campus. It consisted of a table, a few chairs, and a couple of phones for each college. There was no water for either drinking or flushing, and no heat, but those were surmountable problems with bottled water, porta potties, and layers of clothing, primarily sweatshirts and jeans. We went to work, locating all of the students and planning the completion of the first year. One of our students had a father who was a faculty member at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. After a lot of discussion, the University of Nebraska invited the UND medical students to attend a special two-week course during July to help them complete the gross anatomy course. Team taught by faculty from both institutions, our chair of anatomy and cell biology described the collaboration as a tremendous act of altruism. The faculty all were volunteers, there were no tuition or fees charged, and most of the North Dakota students were housed and fed by University of Nebraska faculty and staff.
The large building that houses the school of medicine and health sciences was the hardest hit of the 72 campus structures affected by the flood. The damage to the medical school's physical plant and equipment was estimated to be $8.0 million. All campus buildings were closed on April 18; most were reopened to faculty and staff on May 6, after a good cleaning and the restoration of basic services. The school of medicine's building, however, was not opened until May 19. A special cleanup was required because of the contamination caused by the raw sewage.
The school's entire lower level had to be stripped to its studs, sheetrock was replaced, and the lower level was rebuilt. Ironically, this turned out to be a true benefit of the flood. The school was in the process of curriculum change, converting from a traditional curriculum to patient-centered learning, which is carried out using small groups. Sixteen small-group rooms, designed to accommodate seven to eight students plus a facilitator, were needed. As the lower level was rebuilt, we were able to reconfigure the basic layout to create the required rooms. The learning environment today exactly meets the school's curricular needs, largely because of the flood of 1997.
The devastation from both the Grand Forks flood and New Orleans' Hurricane Katrina are defined not only as disasters but also as catastrophes because all of the residential community was affected, the emergency organizations and their operational bases were themselves affected, and most community functions were sharply and simultaneously interrupted across the board. For the Grand Forks flood, a fourth criterion does not seem applicable: Most local officials were unable to take on their work roles throughout the emergency and recovery periods.2 Given these extreme conditions, it is important to recognize, first and foremost, that the disaster event itself (e.g., the flood, the hurricane, the earthquake, etc.) is only the beginning of the trauma. Recovery is probably the greater part of the story.
At best, recovery is a very difficult time for communities, institutions, families, and individuals. The Missouri Model provides a means of viewing any disaster, including its recovery period. The model's four phases, described by Lystad,3 match our experience in Grand Forks and at the school of medicine and health sciences. The heroic phase is first, a time when the community comes together to save itself from a natural disaster. Recovery then follows with three more phases: a short honeymoon phase, where the community support is high; a much longer disillusionment phase, which is the problematic part of recovery; and, finally, the reconstruction phase, when life is perceived as getting back to normal.
Lessons learned
As we moved through the process of recovery, there were several lessons that we learned. In discussing the more generic or global lessons, however, it is important to remember that the school of medicine and health sciences' recovery took place within the larger context of the recoveries of the university, the city of Grand Forks, and that of the region. The medical school was one part of the whole, and our relationships with the other entities were very interdependent.
The first lesson learned is that everyone is affected. All of us at UND who were involved in this disaster had to remember that everyone who sees or experiences a disaster is affected by it and that each person's reaction may differ from those of others. Yes, we needed to verify that our students were safe and taken care of, but we also needed to be sure the faculty members and the staff were safe and secure. And, at the same time, we needed to deal with our own situations, reactions, and challenges. It was a tremendous balancing act and one that required periodic assessment and reevaluation.
Paying attention to infrastructure concerns is the second lesson. Infrastructure concerns abounded and had to be considered if progress in meeting other goals was to be accomplished. Two examples, important to both students and staff alike, illustrate the point.
▪ Housing was scarce. The need for new furnaces, water heaters, rewiring, etc., was almost universal and called for skilled craftsmen such as electricians, plumbers, and carpenters. Finding these individuals in sufficient numbers was challenging, and once they arrived, they needed to be housed and fed. The university opened its residence halls to them and charged nothing. The lack of housing also potentially affected the school's ability to hire new faculty and/or to matriculate a class. The office of student affairs spent considerable time in identifying housing for students and assuring members of the entering class and their families that the community was safe and that students would have an acceptable place to live.
▪ Day care was hard to find. Many child care providers quit so they could concentrate on getting their own lives in order, and others lost their facilities and equipment to the flood. A high percentage of the workforce, however, and a significant number of students, are dependent on the availability of affordable day care. Day care had to be provided if we were to move forward. The business community and the university collaborated in proposing solutions to these problems.
The need to confront rumors was lesson number three. Rumors were persistent through all phases of the flood and recovery. We learned to listen carefully, discount nothing, check the facts, and then inform all who were affected. For instance, many rumors surrounded the handling of cadavers during the flood. We needed to provide assurance to the donor families and to the general public that this issue had been addressed and that appropriate action had been taken.
We identify the next lesson as one step forward. Although it was important to remain optimistic, there was a concurrent need to be as realistic as possible. A perfect example was the decision the dean's staff reached the first time we met after the flood. We were unanimous in vowing that the flood would not change our commitment to implement the school's new curriculum, scheduled to begin in August 1997. We all soon recognized, however, that all of us-administration, faculty, and staff-were far too consumed with meeting other pressing needs of the school and in dealing with our own personal needs to be able to devote the required time and effort to initiate a new curriculum. Our earlier decision was changed, and we agreed to postpone implementing the curriculum until August 1998. Looking back, it was the right decision, and it provided a much more realistic time line.
The fifth lesson had to do with recognizing the tremendous emotional impact of a disaster. In a study of the response to the flood, Keene4 has identified five common themes: (1) shock and disbelief, (2) uncertainty, (3) grief and loss, (4) emotional exhaustion, and (5) hope and meaning. It was important to educate ourselves and our students about expected responses to disaster and to provide assurance that the feelings are common ones and are normal. The leadership of the university and the school of medicine and health sciences encouraged everyone involved to acknowledge their feelings and to know that accepting help is healthy. The latter was an especially important concept, because the cultural background of the population supported a very stoic outlook. Individuals who had just lost all of their worldly possessions with the exception of the clothes on their backs routinely reflected the attitude that it could have been worse.
The final lesson was that the predicted time for recovery was five years. Many thought this was just plain nonsense when it first was publicized. Many of us figured we could put this behind us within a year or two at the most. As we began the process, however, we became aware that recovery takes a lot of work on many different levels. It often seemed very slow, like a series of baby steps, and it proved to be a long, difficult journey. Today, most would agree that recovery did take about five years.
In reviewing the university's and the school of medicine and health sciences' response to the flood, Johnson5 identifies many areas of excellence. An efficient and effective flood fighting effort was enhanced through open discussions, a team attitude, and giving staff members the latitude to make decisions to fight the flood. People were willing to do anything to contribute to the effort. For example, medical school faculty babysat generators to save research, and an accountant ordered and distributed porta potties throughout the campus. Buildings were systematically taken down before they flooded, by shutting down systems and cutting off their power and gas. This prevented a great deal of damage, including fire, and saved the university millions of dollars. The UND safety office worked with the city and county to remove any hazardous materials, including nuclear and biohazardous wastes, before they were touched by flood water. The transformer that supplied power and telephone lines to the dry part of campus was sandbagged and monitored for the duration of the flooding.
Cleaning of flooded buildings was begun even before the flood ended, preventing much mold and mildew growth. The virtual university, located in one small room, facilitated ongoing communication and allowed the university to continue operations, proceed with recovery, and inform constituents. The mainframe computer system was transported elsewhere, and the payroll was run without missing a day. The university operated a café out of a warehouse, feeding hundreds of people a day a safe and sanitary meal. Beginning the recovery activities very early helped support a faster recovery, allowed the university to begin summer school on schedule, and helped to retain students. Since the flood, manual sanitary sewer and storm sewer shut-off valves have been placed in each building to prevent future sewage backup. We also learned that if we need to cut power to buildings, we will stop the elevators on upper floors before the power is turned off.
Preparation Helps
Every year, there are 500 incidents worldwide that meet the Red Cross definition of a disaster.6 Yet, no one ever believes that they will be directly affected by one. At the UND School of Medicine and Health Sciences, for example, no one had ever expected that one of us would be writing about our experience with a flood and the subsequent recovery. Despite intense preparation, we learned that it is impossible to be fully prepared for a disaster of the magnitude of the flood of 1997. It is important, however, to recognize that a disaster could happen to you and your institution and that investing time and resources in preparation is well worth the effort.
References