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The Red River Floods of 1997 Oral History Project: Interview with Herb Reimer

Titles: The Red River Floods of 1997 Oral History Project: Interview with Herb Reimer (Supplied title)

Description: BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION: Herb Reimer, the city engineer and assistant public works director for city of Moorhead, is a graduate of North Dakota State University with a B.S. in civil engineering. He worked for Fargo for about five years after graduating, then went to work for Moorhead. SUBJECTS DISCUSSED: The work of a city engineer; the toughness of the winter before the flood; planning for flooding; community meetings; flood insurance rate maps; deciding where to dike; overland flooding; early flooding of drainage ditches; the need for a comprehensive water management plan in the valley; creating a channel for the ditch flooding; help from the National Guard; the Emergency Operation Center; working with the city of Fargo; failure of mechanical gauges; misinformation about cresting; trying to save the country club; using garbage trucks to hold down storm sewer covers; Oak Port; crisis of false cresting rumors; relief after the final crest on the eighteenth; flood threats to his family; 133 hours of overtime during two weeks; willingness of public to pitch in; prior preparation for a one-hundred year flood; the value of the Army Corps of Engineers; differences between 1969 and 1987 floods.

Dates

  • 07/11/1997 (Creation)

Creation

Identifiers

  • Library Call Number: OH 57
  • Accession Number: AV1999.66.25

Holding Type: Oral History - Interview

Project

Quantity: 1 hour sound cassette 24 pages transcript

Format

  • Content Category: sound recordings
  • Content Category: text

Measurements

  • 60 minutes length

Subjects

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Documents

Audio:

Audio Part 1

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Audio Part 2

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