Flood control vendors flock to Fargo

FARGO, N.D. (AP) — Residents in this metropolitan area of about 200,000 people see the possibility of record Red River flooding for a second straight year as a threat to their homes. Some businesses outside the area see dollar signs.

City officials say they have been deluged with requests from people who want to sell them flood-control products such as the Aqua Fence, Tiger Dam, Big Bags, Table Bagger and Sandbagging Buddy. Those systems and more will be on display Wednesday in a downtown Fargo auditorium.

"I was surprised, actually, at how many flood-control products are out there," said Deb Schmidt, a city engineer. "These people have been calling the mayor and other flood-control people over and over asking to demonstrate what they have."

It took a massive flood-fighting effort last year to hold back the Red River, which begins near Wahpeton and neighboring Breckenridge, Minn., and flows north into Canada. It reached a record 40.84 feet in the first of two crests in Fargo. Flood stage is 18 feet.

The National Weather Service said in its most recent flood outlook that the Red River in Fargo has a 25 percent chance of reaching record levels again this spring. There is a 70 percent chance it will go over 37 feet, which would lead to diking and sandbagging in some areas. The floods are expected by early April this year.

"There's stress," said Richard Thomas, who lives south of Fargo near the confluence of the Wild Rice and Red rivers. "My wife and I are starting to feel that stress, as are probably all the folks who went through it last year."

Volunteers in the Fargo and Moorhead, Minn., area stacked an estimated 6 million sandbags in 2009.

Thomas tried another method. He protected his home with a 3-foot high egg-shaped tube called the AquaDam — a fabric tube, similar to sandbag material, with two plastic tubes inside that are inflated with water.

Thomas said nine of the 12 homes in his neighborhood were flooded. His stayed dry.

"From what we saw out here, the AquaDam was far superior to the sandbag dikes," he said. "Instead of taking 50 people and two days to put it up, it took two people and a half a day to put it up. And then it didn't leak."

Others tried a portable wall system made up of 3- and 4-foot-high interlocking containers with heavy steel frames covered by high-tech material and filled with sand. The containers, made by Hesco Bastion, had mixed reviews, said Pat Zavoral, Fargo city administrator.

"When you put them on frozen soil, and the soil gets wet and soft, it has a tendency to shift the Hescos," Zavoral said.

Hesco representative Dennis Barkemeyer, who will be among the vendors at Wednesday's show, said his company hired an independent engineering firm to review the performance of the containers used in Fargo. It showed that all the systems held up despite challenging soil conditions, he said.

"It was a concern, but it never did fail. There was not a single failure," Barkemeyer said. "You almost had military Humvees getting stuck on the Fargo Country Club golf course, it was that unstable. But the product performed as intended."

One of the most expensive products expected to be on display Wednesday is a system of levees and floodwalls by EKO Flood Systems USA. The walls can be built up to 30 feet high and stored when they are not in use. The cost is $600 to $700 million to protect the metro area said company president Heinz Munz.

"Fargo and Moorhead would be completely safe," Munz said.

Fargo started looking at the EKO system after a flood in 1997 wiped out the cities of Grand Forks and East Grand Forks, Minn., Zavoral said. A metro flood committee believes the best option for flood control would be a diversion, which is being studied by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

"I think the public decided early that diversion seems to be the most permanent option," said Wayne Flittner, EKO's marketing director. "All we are saying is that Fargo ought to have a backup plan."

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