Mayor Walaker takes a look at how much water is headed to the F-M area

Mayor Walaker has been making these trips for about 20 years. He says he's the kind of guy who wants to see things with his own eyes and what he saw today, he sees as good news, and something Fargo can definitely handle.

“After going through a lot of floods that were pretty predictable, last year and this year have been some real wake up calls.”

The trip down highway 75 today shows a much different picture than last spring. There's still a lot of water filling up fields in the Valley, but not nearly as much as this time last year.

“Like that one, there's isn't 10% of that area that's covered with snow.”

But there was a small hitch during the first stop at the Reservation Dam, by Lake Traverse. Mayor Walaker took a few minutes to look over the rails, and observe the discharge being let out.

“This is a surprise, I wasn't aware that they were discharging out of Traverse.”

As Walaker continued his trip, his fear was quickly calmed. The scene at White Rock dam was very encouraging. Water is being held back fine, and no releases are scheduled. This is just one piece to the flooding puzzle.

“The basin is such a huge thing; it starts and just grows and grows and grows. Is this the answer for our flooding problems in Fargo? Probably not.”

This flood will probably be the fourth largest in Fargo's history, but Mayor Walaker is confident with improvements made to the city. He says unless there are any major changes, Fargo will be successful and beat the water again.

As we get closer to the crest of the Red and Wild Rice rivers, Fargo city engineers are keeping a close eye on drains 27 and 53. Engineers say drain 53 along 52nd avenue south is the biggest concern.

They're worried that when the Wild Rice crests, the overflow could spill over and clog up the drain. Levees are being built in the area, east of the new Wal-Mart, to protect again the water, but engineers say preparing for this sort of water is different.

“So it's not like the river rising slowly, at times when it breaks out, it breaks out very rapidly and comes very quickly toward you and you don't have much time to react.”

Some levees may have to be build along 52nd avenue at 45th street to protect drain 27.

Tags: reporter stories, christina vaughn, fargo, walaker, flood, news