Run for your lives, Minot, N.D.

It's North Dakota. A fourth of any town could fit in my house.

 

Ys sometimes are vowels.

I don't know if you can buy one on Wheel of Fortune, though.

As far as the writing goes, you also have to remember. These journalists also are going through a great deal of stress in their lives. Their homes may be under water, too, or their families may be under stress. Cut them a little bit of slack.

Minot is owned by Ogden. If Ogden had any smarts, or hell, any class, they'd try to recruit a few people (although there may not be any left after all the layoffs), from their sister papers to go and work in Minot for a few days so the actual staffers can get a break from the stress. That's what Gannett has done before when one of their papers' employees was involved in a natural disaster. Plus other companies have done it as well.

 

I know. I was hoping nobody would catch that.

 

If you read those grafs in a Kent Brockman voice, it reads pretty funny.

 

I thought he was going for a Buckeye Newshawk award.

 

10K in your house?

I know one of the LA Times' top reporters is going to Minot to help cover the story, she went to school there and started her career at the MDN, back when it was a family-owned business.

 

One house survived. See Yahoo.com and AP videos. A five foot wall built in 8 hours by friends and family.

 

This story fell by the wayside really quickly. It's really sad -- a quarter of the city lost their homes.

Rebuilding is slow; it's tough to get contractors with all the building going on. And the season is short.

I've taken a one-year volunteer position in the city and have been here a week. I'm living in an RV in a trailerhood built to house volunteers. Have toured the flooded areas and it's depressing as hell.

They reopened a city park yesterday but also "decommissioned" two schools. I went to the park thing and heard a lot of the stories of people forced out of their homes.

It's really sad to me that this disaster didn't garner a lot national attention.

 

I expect North Dakotans to campaign against federal flood assistance, since most of the electorate is big on "self sufficiency."

God must not love the people of Minot very much.

 

They do seem to be very self-sufficient. One of the teams in here has been helping a guy in a wheelchair cut down trees. The guy, who is 75, does most of the heavy work. He's rebuilt his home largely on his own thus far.

At the event yesterday, I told one lady it was the citizen's own fault people weren't stepping up in hoards to help because they weren't whining about it and were just sucking it up and getting it done. Slowly, but they're doing it.

But even some of the residents here who live up on the higher ground have no idea people are still out of their homes. I talked to some of those yesterday, too.

There are 1,400 FEMA trailers still out.

 

It's funny because as I read this story I thought, 'Wow, this flooding is really being underrreported nationally.' Then I googled it and saw all the 1-year anniversary stories and realized this was from last summer.

 

You'd like to think this wouldn't even be a hard decision to make for a company. Put the word out to come do some honest, on-the-ground reporting and help your company co-workers. I'll bet it wouldn't be hard to find people to volunteer.