Flooding and Volunteering
The cities got a lot of volunteers and my family also helped out some. My kids went one day and helped while I stayed home and worked and then the rest went the next day while I stayed home and unclogged my bathroom sink drain, fun stuff. I wanted to get that done before the neighbor used their sink, we have a duplex with joint drains for the bathrooms and I wanted to get that unclogged so we both could use our bathroom sinks. Good thing I stayed home with our van, they got done sandbagging and missed the bus, no telling when the next one would have gone by so I picked them up.
Then we spent the next week volunteering with the next door dog obedience school as they took in pets, cats and dogs, for two weeks or so. We went over every couple of hours and walked the dogs as well as played with dogs and cats. The first few days were pretty rough on some of the poor pets as they were scared and lonely. Many did open up after a day or two and started having fun playing with others they were not even friends with until the flooding.
By the calm of a week after the worst many of the dogs and cats went home or to other situations that owners had arranged, the obedience school had about 50 dogs and cats at the most during the first part of the flood. The staff were pretty overwhelmed so it was good we were close by and could help them. It also helped their owners so they had one less thing to worry about.
Several other area shelters and businesses helped as well including the local zoo that took in exotic pets like snakes and lizards. The local fair grounds opened a building for horses and other large animals and had a lot of them, not sure of the numbers but over a hundred if my memory serves me.
Now everything is quite in town, Moorhead and Fargo, and we are waiting for the river to go up again when the temps start to go up as well. Hopefully we have seen the worst but I know there are plenty of people who will jump in and help.
Thanks to all those that helped out.
Jeff