3.5 Million Sandbags ...

In my last entry, I mentioned that volunteers in the Fargo-Moorhead area filled 3.5 MILLION sandbags. Well I can't get it out of my mind. Lets try to put this number into perspective ...

According to Matt Chambers of Concept3D, if you were to stack 3.5 million sandbags end to end to create a wall that was one sandbag thick around the Empire State Building, you would create a wall of sandbags that was almost a quarter-mile high that nearly contains the entire Empire State Building! That's a lot of sandbags produced in just a few short days! (For more of Matt's explaination go to: http://blog.concept3d.com/?p=433)

But if you step back and look at all the communities fighting spring flooding in ND and MN, there have been around 9.5 million sandbags filled! That is truly a testament to the people of Minnesota and North Dakota.

The first day I was out, we mostly just filled sandbags and transferred them to the garages of homes that needed them. The snow needed to be cleared and ice thawed before walls could be built. I walked over to the sand filling station and hopped up into a pickup truck to start taking sandbags from the guys as they ran them over from the people filling them. To my amazement, I looked down and saw a guy in his electric wheel chair dragging the bags from the sand pile over to the truck! Back and forth he went, until the truck was full. I was blown away.

A few days later, I was out in the small town of Davenport, helping build a wall around a new house built on the east side of town. I found myself in the sandbag line next to an 80 pound junior high girl (the sandbags weigh about 40 pounds ... more if they are wet!) She could barely carry the bags! Especially after her tennis shoes became completely submerged in the black mud around this new home ... she couldn't move her feet, and at one point fell on her butt in the mud! Though her mouth never stopped moving, she never complained. She just kept doing the best she could.

Thursday night they made all the volunteers leave because we were in an evacuation zone. Instead of hearing sighs of relief, I heard people protest and ask to be able to stay until the job was complete! Then, I watched the whole neighborhood ban together and decide to stay and fight for their homes - even though they were told to evacuate, and their help was gone. When the city starting to write us off as lost, we came together and finished the walls and did not lose a single house!

Every day last week I saw the generous people of this community, fighting for each other. I heard fire fighters respond in bewilderment as people - who were about to lose their homes - ran up to them and ask if they wanted a sandwich! Yes there was tension and stress and disagreements. But I never saw complaining. I never saw people waiting around for someone else to come save them. I never saw hopelessness. I'm proud to have been a part of that.