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Minot residents don’t expect to go home soon

Jun 23, 2011 | 9:27 AM

The anxiety level in Minot, North Dakota is no doubt through the roof at the Souris River continues to drain from the very flooded southeast part of our province into the U.S. state right below us.

A quarter of their population is evacuated and homes are already under water.

NBC reporter, Tim Ross, is in Minot and said the water is already way up from its normal level and it's only going to go higher

“I stand five-foot-eight — that level was about waist high on me. So it’s still going to go another five feet above my head, which is still ten feet above the homes below the dike,” Ross told News Talk Radio’s Jerry Steen on Thursday morning.

“Throughout the night we heard reports of water breaching in a number of areas and flooding homes, already, we’re experiencing that. You know, it’s only going to get worse.”

The City sounded emergency sirens just before 1 p.m. Wednesday afternoon when the water topped the dikes, telling people that hadn't evacuated that they had to immediately.

Ross says the water is already lapping up against the secondary dike system that crews are still trying to finish.

There's no word on when they'll be able to go home. Ross says some people have told him not until September, others don't know if they'll be able to return at all.

news@panow.com