Evacuating Two Cities

As flood predictions from the National Weather Service continued to rise, Grand Forks and East Grand Forks struggled to keep up while residents battled the Red River and city officials worked to keep people safe. New and strange sounds engulfed the cities as civil defense sirens signaled the evacuation of first one neighborhood, then the next, National Guard personnel used bullhorns to call out warnings, and helicopters chopped overhead. Between April 16 and 19, Grand Forks issued four evacuation orders that eventually covered 90 percent of the city, and even hospital patients and nursing home residents were moved to higher ground. All of East Grand Forks was evacuated. Many evacuees took immediate shelter in a hangar at the Grand Forks Air Force Base, some found refuge with family and friends in 49 different states and several countries, and people across the region opened their hearts and homes, their schools and their churches, to residents of the two communities. In what became the largest evacuation of an American city since the Civil War, not a single life was lost.

Grand Forks, North Dakota · United States