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In the spring and summer of 1997, Valley residents coped with mountains of trash - everything from soaked furniture to ruined appliances to smashed heirlooms. In the Grand Forks-East Grand Forks area, Army Corps of Engineers trucks were used to haul hundreds of loads daily to land fills. City workers were putting in 12 hour shifts and seven day weeks until well into the summer in order to deal with the refuse.
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"To the Dump." Sketch by Carolyn Mahoney, Moorhead State University.
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"Garage Sale." Such signs became a common form of graveyard humor in flooded neighborhoods. Photo courtesy of FEMA.
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Trash piled outside the Ada police department headquarters, April, 1997.
Photo courtesy of Greg Holmvik, Ada.
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Hundreds of flooded washers, refrigerators, and other appliances stacked at a hauling site in Grand Forks, May, 1997. Photo from Northwest Minnesota Historical Center flood collection.
| "We'd push things into a big pile, and then they'd haul it out,
and then you'd clean a little bit more, and then they'd come back. I think they had
about two or three pick-ups along the curb that way. About a week later they would
come and pick up stuff again." Craig Buckalew, on trash removal in East Grand Forks |
