Getting Back To Normal

Well, the worst of the flooding in Minot is over now, and there's a second route between north and south Minot.  We still have a really long road to recovery, but we're moving in the right direction now.

The city of Minot is under a boil order and conservation mandate, but they still have running water, which is pretty major, all things considered.  We've been extra busy at our house because we still have clean tap water, so I've done some children's laundry for friends that aren't so lucky.  Minot actually supplies the water to a pretty big part of north central North Dakota, so there are a lot of people with dirty water, but as far as I know, everyone does have water now.

We went ahead and ventured out into Minot on Friday.  I wanted to drop some stuff off, and we needed to get food for our brand new kitten as well.  The traffic wasn't nearly as bad as I had expected, and really over in the shopping district, it was hard to tell that there was a major crisis going on.  There were a bunch of extra things like sump pumps and shop vacs out, but that was really  about the only sign I saw in the stores.

I know we will have several months of clean up to do, and we'll be fighting the clock the whole way.  In North Dakota winter comes early and hard.  It was amazing how well everyone worked together to get people evacuated and buildings sandbagged, though, and I think the same thing will happen with the clean up process.  North Dakotans work hard and are mostly honest people.  We haven't had much crime since this started, unlike so many other places after a disaster.  I have no doubt that our area will get through this and come out stronger!