River crests below record projection in flood-hit Crookston
Thousands of volunteers helped fill sandbags to protect the City of Crookston from extreme flooding over the weekend, and the community response has been met with encouraging news Monday as the National Weather Service has revised its forecast for the Red Lake River.
Christian Brothers Ford
"Good news is that the Red Lake River in Crookston is currently peaking at around 27 feet and is NOT likely to rise much higher," the National Weather Service in Grand Forks announced at 4:30 a.m. Monday.
On Sunday, the NWS was predicting a record crest of 28.5 feet, but it crested early Monday at 27.07 feet and is expected to drop almost ten feet by the weekend.
Anything over 23 feet causes major flooding in Crookston, so this flooding is likely to continue until late Wednesday or early Thursday.
Despite being spared from a record crest, the river reached a height only seen twice before in 128 years of record-keeping.
The 1997 floods that devastating Grand Forks and other communities along the Red River Basin resulted in the Red Lake River reaching a record crest of 28.4 feet. In April 1969, the river surged to 27.33 feet. The 2022 crest is the third highest on record.
On Sunday, Gov. Tim Walz declared a peacetime emergency and activated the Minnesota National Guard to respond to Crookston to help with emergency response and possible evacuations.
The Red River, meanwhile, continues to rise and threaten communities from Drayton, North Dakota to Oslo, Minnesota and then southward to Grand Forks.
Oslo, which only has two roads going in and out of town, is likely to have major flooding the rest of the week as the Red River nears a record crest.
The Red River in Grand Forks won't reach the crest of more than 54 feet in 1997, but it is forecast to crest this week at 48.5 feet, which would be the sixth-highest crest at the location in the record-keeping era.
