A flood warning is set to go into effect for Crookston on Friday, April 3, at 10:00 p.m. The first crest for the Red Lake River in Crookston is predicted at 16-feet, which would be a minor flood stage for the City of Crookston.
City of Crookston Emergency Manager and Fire Chief Tim Froeber said while the forecast shows Crookston should stay below the 20-foot mark, rain and ice jams can change that forecast quickly. “They had a webinar today and are thinking we should stay below the 20-foot mark,” said Froeber. “We still have a couple of chances of rain later this week, so things can change drastically in a hurry. If we get a bunch of rain later this week, it will finish melting out all the snow we have on the ground and start opening up the ditches bringing the water to the river a lot faster. Ice jams are always an issue in Crookston. The way the river meanders through Crookston, there are a lot of crooks and curves, and a lot of areas we do get ice jams. Ice holds back a lot of water, and that usually causes our biggest problem, the water held up by ice jams.”
Froeber said the City of Crookston’s emergency plan flow chart would include a meeting of the Emergency Operations Center Committee if the river does rise to 18 feet, with a forecast for 20 feet down the road. “For the City of Crookston, the minor flood stage begins at 15 feet,” said Froeber. “If we’re going to reach a stage of about 20 feet, we’ll have an Emergency Operations Center (EOC) committee meeting at 18 feet to determine when to open up the EOC and the Ward Command Posts. That committee consists of the emergency management director, fire chief, police chief, city administrator, and public works director. Those are usually the people that also man the EOC.”
Crookston Public Works Director Pat Kelly said his staff has been preparing for the spring flood event for a couple of weeks, including testing all the pumps. “For the last couple of weeks now, we’ve been going through our portable pumps and our dike pumps, checking the system out,” said Kelly. “We’re loading up our trailer over the next day or two to get our portable pumps ready to go. I just saw this afternoon that they are projecting a crest of 16 feet, which is good for us. That is something we can handle quite easily. We’re hoping that holds together at that elevation, and it should be a good event for us if it stays like this.”
Once the river reaches 16 feet, Public Works would typically transition to 24-hour shifts. Kelly said that if there isn’t much change in the forecast, the city will likely need to have only a small crew for 24-hour shifts, or possibly can get by with checking locations around town at intervals. “If it stays around 15-16 feet or something like that, it really depends on the runoff and precipitation in town,” said Kelly. “We’ll have a few valves closed, so if there is rain or still melting and runoff, we might have to have a small crew for 24 hours. That’s kind of an as-needed type thing. If we get much higher than 16 feet than we will for sure go to 24-hour crews. But at that 15-16-foot level, we might just have people go out and check the pumps at certain intervals.”
While the ice has been far from ideal for most of the winter, Froeber warned that it is especially dangerous now and asked people to call if they notice anyone on the river. “We just want to remind the community to stay away from the river,” said Froeber. “The ice isn’t safe at all. If you see anybody down on the river or the ice, please call 911 to make sure we get them off there before someone gets hurt.”
