Transcripts

text | pdf |

---

RACHEL REABE: MPR's Mainstreet Radio coverage of rural issues is supported by the Blandin Foundation, committed to strengthening communities through grant making, leadership training, and convening. We invite you to visit the Mainstreet website. Go to www.mpr.org where you can hear today's program at your convenience.

This special Mainstreet Flood website Remembering and Rebuilding also includes entries from a flood journal and photos of the people and places we're talking about today. The entire collection of MPR stories on the flood will also be available on the Mainstreet website. The address, again is www.mpr.org.

- (SINGING) In the big, big flood, our covers went down. It came over the tide. In the big, big flood.

RACHEL REABE: Good afternoon. Welcome to this special Mainstreet Radio broadcast live from East Grand Forks. The music we're listening to is part of a theatrical production, Keep The Faith, written and performed by the people of this area in commemoration of the big flood. A year ago, they were fighting the Battle of their lives against the relentless Red River.

After days of sandbagging and pumping, the river flowed over its dikes and through the streets of Grand Forks and East Grand Forks. Homes and schools and businesses were washed away. Among the hardest hit areas was a close knit neighborhood of comfortable older homes and middle class families in East Central Grand Forks.

For the residents who lived on or near Lincoln drive, the flood took more than their homes and belongings. It stole a sense of community that may never be replaced. Minnesota Public Radio's Laura McCallum tells the stories of three families from the Lincoln drive neighborhood and how they're rebuilding their lives after the flood.

LAURA MCCALLUM: On April 22, 1997, thousands of people chased from their homes by the surging Red River pressed into a hangar at the Grand Forks Air Force base to hear President Clinton offer words of comfort and support.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: We have hardly ever seen such a remarkable demonstration of courage and commitment and cooperation and basic human strength. And we are very impressed and proud to be Americans when we see what you have done--

[APPLAUSE]

--in the face of this terrible disaster.

[CHEERING]

LAURA MCCALLUM: In the audience, three neighbors listened, John Little, Pat Moen, and Susan Cutshall. All lived within a few blocks of one another. All three fled Grand Forks as the Red River spilled over dikes and poured into their homes after rising high above National Weather Service projections to crest at 54 feet, 26 feet above flood stage.

The Moans and Cutshalls lived on Lincoln Drive, their backyards bordering the river. John Little's house stood a couple of blocks away on Chestnut. There was a sense of comfort, even relief, in the air base hangar, a huge change from the confusion and terror described in the pages of Susan Cutshall's diary in the days leading up to the President's visit.

SUSAN CUTSHALL: April 17, '97, it happened in the afternoon. The dike had four cracks at the end of Lincoln Drive. Siren blew. Police came. Guards, fire trucks, helicopters, and I broke down. We packed clothes and cleared out the refrigerator. Moved over to 207 Chestnut, where we thought we would be safe.

1:15 Friday, we heard on the radio that the Lincoln gave in. Its filling up. Lincoln Lagoon, they call it. We walked all the way home not knowing what to expect. Two houses from us, you can see the water coming up. Tears fell down my cheeks. And the guard stopped us, and I said, no, that's our house.

I got up at 4:30 Friday. The sirens are going off. The phones are ringing. The woman I was staying with, Mary Ann Ellen, woke me up and says that was a call for prayer. We did. And all I could do is imagine everybody praying to God to stop these waters. Because we can't. We tried.

We went through town very, very slow-- creepy. We were still scared because if that engine stalled, we're right in the middle of it. We thought we were going to air base, instead, we went to Faith Community Church on the other side and we thought we were safe.

We got up at 7:00 AM to find out the water's getting closer and closer. So here we are, doing it again. And we went for shelter at the air base. And I told my husband, if it comes out this far, I'm leaving the whole state. I've had enough. I can't run away anymore.

LAURA MCCALLUM: By the time President Clinton toured Grand Forks, the Cutshalls and their neighbor John Littlle had been staying on canvas cots at the base for three days. Little, a wiry man with a shock of curly hair, moved to Grand Forks in 1969. But you'd never know it to hear his Southern accent. The University of North Dakota English professor fully expected to be at the base another week or two.

JOHN LITTLE: I don't think the river's going to be going down much in a week, and I do enjoy visiting. And I'm enjoying watching the people. But it would be nice to take a shower.

LAURA MCCALLUM: Little had heard the gurgle of his basement filling the night before he evacuated, and like many at the base, he wasn't sure what condition his home would be in when he returned. But Pat Moen already knew flood floodwaters reached the rooftop of her two story home. Her husband, a Grand Forks police officer, patrolled the area. Moen knew they would not return to 501 Lincoln Drive.

PAT MOEN: It's hard. And Lincoln Drive area, that whole neighborhood is a real close neighborhood, so it's hard.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

LAURA MCCALLUM: Three weeks later, mid-May, Moen's neighborhood is deserted. The only sound, a wind chimes still hanging in her backyard. Some nearby homes were forced off their foundations by the force of the floodwater. Moen blue 75-year-old home is marked off by yellow police tape. Inside floors have buckled, half dried mud is peeling off the kitchen counters, and her refrigerator is toppled over. Moen can't spend any time there. The home's musty flood smell brings on her asthma. At a restaurant on the other side of town, Moen says, her neighborhood is destroyed.

PAT MOEN: And I look at my neighbor's houses and I cry. It's hard.

LAURA MCCALLUM: It's quiet in Grand Forks now that the Red River is back within its banks. As residents return to their homes in the days following the flood, many directed their anger at the National Weather Service for its inaccurate prediction of the river's crest. An army of volunteers is still helping with disaster relief in Grand Forks, but the satellite farms of the TV crews have withered away almost to nothing, and the visits by national politicians have stopped. Pat Moen and her husband Jim are staying with her mother in a two bedroom trailer. They've decided to move to North Carolina, where their daughter lives when Jim retires from the police department in January.

The Cutshalls, who lived a few blocks away on higher ground, are renting a rundown trailer in nearby Emerado, not sure whether to clean up their house, which got about a foot of water on the main floor or wait for a possible buyout. Both the Moens and Cutshalls homes are on what's called the wet or wrong side of a proposed new dike city officials are considering to protect Grand Forks from future floods, although it isn't likely to be built for several years. Only John Little is living in his home again.

[DOOR CREAKS]

JOHN LITTLE: So watch your step.

LAURA MCCALLUM: When little small, dark basement flooded, a brick wall caved in, but the water didn't reach his main floor. Little knows he was fortunate, but he did spend a miserable five days pumping out his basement without the benefit of heat, running water, or electricity.

JOHN LITTLE: That might have been one of the worst weeks of my life, working in that dungeon with that muck. And there's no easy way, no way to glamorize what it was like in that basement. You know, I had a Coleman lantern, and a flashlight, and a squeegee board, and a push broom, and a five gallon bucket so that you were just hauling that muck out of there.

LAURA MCCALLUM: Little is glad to be back in his two story home, which he's been restoring for more than a decade. One of his teenage twin sons lives here, too. The 58-year-old English professor has long planned to stay until he retires to his home state of Mississippi in a few years. He admits he's second guessed himself a few times, not because of the flood, but because he didn't apply soon enough to get any of the so-called angel money. An anonymous donor pledged $15 million to Grand Forks flood victims to be distributed in no strings attached $2,000 grants. Little says, he put off applying because he hates filling out forms and standing in line. And now the money's gone.

JOHN LITTLE: Everything that the city said and that I heard through the grapevine led me to believe that you didn't have to rush to get the money. I thought it was kind of guaranteed, so I felt like they had misled me and that made me bitter enough-- I'm ashamed to say-- that I thought, I don't want to be here anymore. But I've since backed off of that, you know, now that you have time to think about it.

LAURA MCCALLUM: Little is also working on a novel about, ironically, North Dakotans who lost their homes to a reservoir.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

It's early July, nearly three months after the flood. Lincoln Drive is still devastated. Little has changed here, except now a few barren lots are evidence Grand Forks has begun tearing down houses. The city council has approved the first phase of a plan to buy out flood damaged homes. Officials delayed a decision until Congress approved a disaster relief bill allocating more than $1 billion to Minnesota and the Dakotas. The latest damage estimate for Grand Forks alone is more than $500 million.

The Cutshalls have decided to buy a new house 17 miles away in Emerado, far from the flood-prone river. Sitting in front of 7 Lincoln Drive. Dennis Cutshall is resigned to leaving the place they called home for almost a decade and a half.

DENNIS CUTSHALL: That's what kept us here was the neighborhood, and I guess that's finally what's making us decide to leave because the neighborhood is going to be gone. Even if our house stayed, the neighborhood's gone. It's an old fashioned type of neighborhood where you could sit out and wave at people, and kids would play in their bikes and everything. And so that's-- it's going to be tough to leave that.

RACHEL REABE: Good afternoon. I'm Rachel Reabe, and we're continuing this Mainstreet broadcast live from East Grand Forks. We're broadcasting from the city council chambers here just a block from the Red River. And in the council chambers with me this afternoon, we have John Little, and Dennis and Susan Cutshall. Pat Moen is joining us from station WFAE in Charlotte, North Carolina. Welcome to all of you.

SUSAN CUTSHALL: Thank you.

RACHEL REABE: You all lived in the same part of Grand Forks and you all lost your homes in last year's flood. But a year after the flood, you've made very different decisions about what direction to go. Dennis and Susan, you have stayed in the area but moved 17 miles out of Grand Forks. And John, your house is going to be bought out. But at this point, you remain there. Pat, you and your husband moved across the country to North Carolina. Let's talk about why you decided to do what you did. Pat, was it more painful to stay than to leave?

PAT MOEN: I think it was. We have our daughter and our grandkids here in Kannapolis. And we had to make the decision whether to come and be with them or try to find a place that was like Lincoln Drive in Grand Forks. It was like a close neighborhood. It was hard to see us all going different directions, not knowing where any of our neighbors were going. We wanted to be close to them, but I also wanted to be close to my daughter and my grandchildren.

RACHEL REABE: As you've moved now across the country to North Carolina and the rebuilding goes on here, do you keep up with it quite closely or do you try to forget about it?

PAT MOEN: You can't forget about friends and neighborhood and what's happened to them. You will never forget them.

RACHEL REABE: Dennis and Susan, let's talk about did you also toy with the idea of just moving. I mean, you had a lot of options, I suppose, when your house is taken.

SUSAN CUTSHALL: Oh, yes, we did think about leaving real quick. And well-- and the other half, why would we be running away. I mean, you can't run away from the weather. It's going to strike you wherever you are. And that's how I looked at it so--

DENNIS CUTSHALL: And we, just as Pat said, she has grandkids down there. We have grandkids up here in Grand Forks and a son and daughter. So we still have connections here. Plus, we still like Grand Forks, you know, and we work here, volunteer here.

RACHEL REABE: Why Emerado?

DENNIS CUTSHALL: We were going by what was available. Grand Forks, obviously, had a severe housing problem right after the flood. And with what the SBA was willing to loan us and what we could put together, that just happened to be the correct choice that fell into the right range.

RACHEL REABE: Will Emerado ever be home to you?

SUSAN CUTSHALL: No. No.

RACHEL REABE: Pat said, she couldn't have Lincoln Park again. She couldn't have the neighborhood back. So do you just settle for something else, basically?

SUSAN CUTSHALL: Well, when you've lived at Lincoln Drive for 12 and 1/2 years, even if you've been bought out, we still consider that as our home. It was our first home we bought. And all of our kids grew up there. Our youngest was two years old and now she's 15. And so-- and, you know-- and being ex-military, we're only used to being in one state for three or four years at a time.

RACHEL REABE: So this is where you put down your roots?

SUSAN CUTSHALL: Right. Right.

RACHEL REABE: Lincoln Park?

SUSAN CUTSHALL: Lincoln Drive.

RACHEL REABE: Lincoln Drive.

SUSAN CUTSHALL: There's a big difference because there is a Lincoln Park.

PAT MOEN: Yeah, there is a big difference.

RACHEL REABE: John, you remain there?

JOHN LITTLE: Yeah, I'm still living in my house. And I'll be there as long as the city will let me stay there. But eventually, I will retire. I hope to retire in Oxford, Mississippi.

RACHEL REABE: Does it seem so odd to still be there?

JOHN LITTLE: No, I like my house. You know, I got a-- I got a house with hardwood floors and a fireplace and a bay window and an upstairs. And I do-- it's the only house I ever own, really. So I think of it as home. I just wish it were not quite so close to the Red River of the North. I wish it were in Oxford, Mississippi.

I wish it were where I could-- I'd love to move that house down to Oxford when I retire. I leave this afternoon, about an hour from now, actually to fly to Oxford and try to look for a house. Hopefully, I can find one this weekend and with the SBA's help buy it. I don't know that that's going to happen, but hopefully it will. Oxford is-- I've-- you know, I've always felt like I went to school in Ole Miss in the '50s, and I spent a couple of sabbaticals there. I've known people--

RACHEL REABE: So you have strong ties there?

JOHN LITTLE: Yeah, so it's a home away from home for me. So I look forward to going there.

RACHEL REABE: I drove down Lincoln Drive yesterday. And a year after the flood, in some sense it looks like the waters could have receded last week. Still, homes are broken, windows, a lot of destruction still standing there. Do you go back?

DENNIS CUTSHALL: We--

RACHEL REABE: Dennis, do you drive back through there?

DENNIS CUTSHALL: I-- well, I used to drive back when we still had the house. I drove back every day, but I find myself driving through there maybe once a week or so. And I guess as a check to see if the house is still standing and see what's going on down there.

RACHEL REABE: I was not--

DENNIS CUTSHALL: It's-- we haven't completely been able to make that break yet.

RACHEL REABE: I wasn't prepared for the homes turned into billboards that I saw when I drove through there last night. Sightseers go home.

SUSAN CUTSHALL: That's been there for a long time.

PAT MOEN: Well, Rachel, I--

RACHEL REABE: Tear this house down and die.

PAT MOEN: I think, Rachel, you had to be there.

RACHEL REABE: There's obviously, a lot of anger, a sense of betrayal on the part of people. Do you sense that, John, as you continue to live there? Is it like a ghost town? Certainly, there are houses that are inhabited very close to the blocks where houses are deserted.

JOHN LITTLE: Well, my neighborhood is still there, unlike Lincoln Drive, you know--

RACHEL REABE: You were a couple blocks off.

JOHN LITTLE: Yeah, my next door neighbor is leaving at the end of this month. And they were very close friends. They were going to Maple Lake. There were-- And I will miss them a lot. So that's going to be a major blow when they leave. But my neighbor on the other side is going to be there when I'm gone. There will be a slight gap or two in my neighborhood, but nothing like the destruction that was in Lincoln Drive. So I-- we don't have the kind of trauma that Dennis and Susan experienced.

RACHEL REABE: Our phone lines are open this afternoon. If you would like to call us during this special Main Street broadcast on the flood, you can do that at 1-800-537-5252. We have Denise from Minneapolis on the phone. Good afternoon.

AUDIENCE: Hi, good afternoon. It's good to hear this program. We've been-- like many Twin Cities residents, I have Grand Forks roots and grew up and spent some time on Lincoln Drive and went to Lincoln Elementary. So I've been sad to hear of the fate of the street. And that was my original question is, is the Lincoln Drive neighborhood, is Lincoln drive gone? Is it anything going to be rebuilt? Has everybody's going to be dispersed forever?

And then an unrelated question is, what is the role that neighborhoods are playing to help rebuild themselves? Here in the Twin cities, we have a neighborhood revitalization program where people are active and empowered to help make decisions in revitalizing and rebuilding neighborhoods. And is that kind of a thing playing out at all in Grand forks? And then I'll hang up and listen.

RACHEL REABE: Thank you. Let's take the first part of your question. Susan, are those homes on Lincoln Drive all coming down?

SUSAN CUTSHALL: Yes, they are. And besides that, like both of the mayors are both deciding where the dikes are going to be. Even our neighbors, which is right on Amonte, they have to leave too. And because the dike is coming right through their living room. So--

DENNIS CUTSHALL: As I understand it from federal guidelines, they can't rebuild residents there. They can only make it a greenway or parking lots.

RACHEL REABE: Would you live there again? If they said to you today, if the call came in and they said, Dennis and Susan, we'll build your exact house just like it was right there on your same lot, would you say, OK, we're coming back from Emerado? Or would you say, I can never live there again?

DENNIS CUTSHALL: I think there are a lot of days when we would say, yes.

SUSAN CUTSHALL: We're coming back. And then there's others--

DENNIS CUTSHALL: When we think of the water coming over the dike, when we say, whoa.

SUSAN CUTSHALL: It'd be very hard to go back. I mean, nothing is going to be the same ever again once you leave. It's hard to go back because you want it to be like it was before the flood. And it can't be because everything has changed.

RACHEL REABE: Pat, how would you respond to that? If they said they could take your house and fix it up as good as new, would you come home? Pat, have we still got you on the line from Charlotte, North Carolina?

PAT MOEN: Yeah. Are you there?

RACHEL REABE: Yes, I am.

PAT MOEN: I can hear you. Yeah, I probably would, if I could talk my daughter to come home. I miss my friends. I miss the neighborhood. And to answer one of Denise's questions, I wish people could see how bad Lincoln Drive really looks. The signs on the houses, as you commented about, you had to be there. It was bad enough to lose your house. Then you had people going through your house taking what they wanted, and you're standing in there being violated and people got angry. It's hard to explain it. It's a very hurt feeling.

RACHEL REABE: I read the article in the paper about people arrested for looting in these houses and people trying to burglarize what's left. At that point, did you feel like choking somebody?

PAT MOEN: Yeah, you do.

RACHEL REABE: Was there a sense, Dennis, of like this, come on.

DENNIS CUTSHALL: Actually, that was one of the reasons we moved so quickly to buy another house, because through the help a lot of people that came and helped us, we saved much of our stuff. And we felt we had to get it out of there as soon as possible.

RACHEL REABE: Do you wonder when you're going to get over this? This is a year now since the flood. Would you have thought a year ago, boy, if I can just get through this year, then life is going to be happy and we're all going to smile again? Or is there-- a year later, is there a sense, gee, it's not moving quite as quickly as I would have liked it to, at least on an emotional front? Susan, how would you answer that?

SUSAN CUTSHALL: That's a good question. Sometimes, I think it goes fast because I volunteer for a child daycare center. And I have a Good News at the house twice a week. Good News Club to teach children about God. And it goes real fast. But, you know, as far as I still sit down and write 7 Lincoln Drive. And I still write the old phone number, 775-5036.

You know, and after all these years of doing that, it's hard to, you know-- it's not as-- it's easier to switch from '97 to '98 than it is from living somewhere for-- it's going to take a long time, you know. We still have things in our house, in our new house, that still have flood water all over them. I haven't even gotten a chance to clean them yet.

Besides that, I've noticed a lot about flood water. No matter how many times you clean it, it comes back. There's a film that will not be erased, and I think that's the way it is with our lives today from Grand Fork. It's a film that will never be erased. It will always be there whether you have adjusted. To me, you won't recover 100%, maybe 98. But that 2% is still there. It's like memories.

RACHEL REABE: When mayor Pat Owens was on this morning, she talked about we will be stronger. We will be better. We won't be the same, though. We'll be different. Do you have to at some point think it can't be the same, it can't be the same. Quit wishing it could be the same. Do you have to almost mentally shake yourself and think, OK, turn around and look forward now?

SUSAN CUTSHALL: I--

DENNIS CUTSHALL: Yes, I think that's exactly right. We have to think things won't be the old normal. They have to be the new normal. It's--

RACHEL REABE: A whole new continuum then.

DENNIS CUTSHALL: Right.

RACHEL REABE: John, do you agree with this?

JOHN LITTLE: Yeah, I look forward to the time that I'm going to go to Oxford, Mississippi, and live. I think that's the way that my chapter is going to be closed on it. I don't think that's going to happen real soon. You know, I don't know when I'm going to be able to retire. That's-- I'm going to retire as soon as I can. But that's still three or four years, I think, down the road.

But I'm going to leave a couple of boys who consider Grand Forks home here. I expect to be coming back in the summertime and going fishing. A lot of my favorite fishing holes are in this state in Minnesota and Manitoba. So I expect to be commuting back here in the summertime. But the flood is going to be behind me.

There is going to be no residue and no film on my soul. Maybe I'm lucky that way. I saw the flood as a massive inconvenience to me personally, but I never cried over anything that I lost. I didn't have to. So I consider myself lucky. I don't know how my life is going to be in Oxford. I don't know that I can find a house there. You don't ever know that.

RACHEL REABE: So you don't know what the future holds for you.

JOHN LITTLE: I don't know what the future holds. And I'm still in a state of chaos because I don't know how long I'm going to be in my home, when I'm going to sell it. All of that is still in the future. But the Red River, when it retreated from my life after I got back in it, all that it did was inconvenience me.

RACHEL REABE: Our phone lines are open this afternoon, 1-800-537-5252. I'm Rachel Reabe, and this is a special Mainstreet Radio broadcast from East Grand Forks. We have Dennis and Susan Cutshall with us here, as well as John little. Pat Moen joins us from station WFAE in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Dr. Denise Twohey is a psychologist and Professor at the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks. Dr. Twohey welcome to our show today. I want to ask you about-- let's talk about these stress scales that we're going to be on and how are you ranking on the stress scale. What does a flood that chases 61,000 people out of their homes, what does that do on the stress scale?

DR. DENISE TWOHEY: Well, I think it puts you about off the charts, because so many of the things that people have been talking about already today are separate items on the stress scale, losing a home, losing a job, conflict in relationships. We've seen a huge increase in domestic violence, for example. People at our university clinic have been coming in more often for relational difficulties, couples therapy. Children, I guess, have been extremely traumatized. And so as parents are traumatized, retraumatized by trying to help their children. And there's just a whole host of things that set one another off.

RACHEL REABE: Are men and women-- do they deal very differently with this? We just heard Susan say, there will always be a film from the flood on my life. Then John Little sitting across the table, said, there will be no film in my life from the flood. Is that not a typical but is that not an unusual difference in how people look-- is there a difference in the sexes or is it just difference of personality?

DR. DENISE TWOHEY: Well, I studied gender. That's my primary research interest. And I was kind of smiling to myself. And actually, I looked over and saw a student from our program sitting back there, and I winked at her when I was listening to John Little talk, because he does seem to portray-- it is a stereotype, but in some ways, it's also a very real portrayal of what a lot of the gender differences in this community have looked like.

I wrote an article on Coping with the Flood, Gender Differences. I was talking about men mainly, and how they're kind of fallen heroes in a sense. I heard the word hero also a lot throughout this broadcast. You know, we as community, we're all heroes. But men are heroes in a different way in a disaster. And I think some of your coping skills are different, John, than mine, for example.

I mean, although you, you know, speak painfully about what pumping out the basement was like for you, I think that it taps many more insecurities in me or in Pat just because I haven't been socialized to know how to do those things. So when I see men, you know, rushing in with hammers, and nails, and pumps, and equipment, and duct tape, I-- I have to laugh at Marcia Harris's article in The Herald because she said a flood is a guy thing, you know. And in some ways, a natural disaster gives men something to do that they've historically always been good at doing.

RACHEL REABE: So men and women do deal very differently?

DR. DENISE TWOHEY: Well, that's yes, I think so. And I did have kind of a reaction from some men who read this article of mine saying, what am I trying to say that it's healthy to cry. But yes, I mean, we know from, you know, studying grief literature and a flood in a way is a grief process. Coping with a natural disaster is a grief process.

And when I hear you talking about going back to your house and saying goodbye, you're lucky that-- I mean, I don't want to say you're lucky. Of course, none of us are lucky, but the physical remains is there and you can say goodbye. And I think that's a very healthy coping mechanism. And I think often men don't cry.

JOHN LITTLE: You know, I used a line I didn't lose anything in the flood that made me cry. And that's a fact. If--

RACHEL REABE: John, you lived there how long?

JOHN LITTLE: I think 14 years.

RACHEL REABE: So you still live there a long-- it's not like you-- you sound like you might have arrived yesterday from Mississippi, but you haven't. You lived here for a long time.

JOHN LITTLE: Oh, yeah, I've been in. In the community for, well, it'll be 30 years. I had an accent when I came.

RACHEL REABE: I'm sure.

JOHN LITTLE: But most of it is gone.

[LAUGHS]

Some of it is gone. I do-- you know, I have noticed that I don't sleep as much. I keep books on my bed now. And I very often will read two or three times during the course of a night. That may be a function of stress. I don't know. I don't consciously feel like I'm suffering a whole lot, nor have suffered, you know, those God awful days when you had to spend hours on the telephone trying to find somebody to put a lights in, or put an electric box in, or--

RACHEL REABE: So a lot of frustrations, a lot of things to get upset about.

JOHN LITTLE: A lot of that. A lot of that. But I just-- yeah, I feel like there is no permanent scars from the flood for me. But I didn't lose-- I didn't lose what a lot of people lost. You know, I'm going to lose my house. And I'm going to miss it. But it's not going to make me cry, you know.

RACHEL REABE: This program is coming to you live from East Grand Forks, their brand new city council chambers. Mainstreet's Dan Gunderson is with somebody in the audience with a question or comment. Dan.

DAN GUNDERSON: Yes, Linda is a Grand Forks resident. She moved here just in time for the flood, she says/ and she has a question for Denise Twohey.

AUDIENCE: Hi, I've read some of your articles about different responses that genders have, you know, the intimacy thing. And those of us who are in the mental health field in this area have noticed a real dramatic increase in the number of couples coming in for counseling. I'm wondering if you could comment on that, if you think it's related to the way people are coping with the flood.

DR. DENISE TWOHEY: That's a good question. I think that some of the differences that we've just been talking about create those conflicts in relationship. For example, John, if you were married and your wife was crying every day and telling you about all the things that she lost, and you're saying over and over again, well, you know, I didn't lose anything, you might have quite a bit more tension than you would have before the flood. And so I think sometimes the differences in coping styles can cause those conflicts and a natural disaster really brings those out.

RACHEL REABE: Pat, let's ask you, you and your husband, have you reacted very differently to the flood and how your lives have changed as a result of the flood?

PAT MOEN: We had to act differently. Butch had to be on top of Lincoln Drive, watch his house go underwater, stop his neighbors from going into the neighborhood at times. So I didn't cry a lot in front of him. I held it back to be strong for him. But in the same breath, I always knew if I had to cry, he would be there.

We're strong for each other. We work well together as a couple, and we've had our cry together. But it's been in North Carolina. It wasn't in Grand Forks. We, like I said, we miss our neighbors, our friends. Butch was a police officer for 31 and 1/2 years, so he's had a lot of public contact, a lot of friends that we leave behind.

RACHEL REABE: So the pain of that as well. We've spent much of our show talking with adults about how the flood has impacted them, how they're putting their lives back together. What about the children, though? How are they coping? One of the elementary schools destroyed by the flood was in the Lincoln neighborhood where John Little, Pat Moen, and the Cutshalls all lived. The children of Lincoln Elementary School now relocated to a church building, created a book of poems about their flood experience. Let's listen to how some of the children remember the flood.

SPEAKER 1: Before the flood, my school was happy. There was always at least one kid hanging around after school. But now it was deserted, lonely, and sad. When I saw my school, it was so lonely. A swing was swinging back and forth really slow with a little squeak each time it went back and forth. The doors were chained up making it look eerie. It looked like no one had ever been at our school for years. It's like the end of all those memories.

SPEAKER 2: I tasted fruit roll-ups when I was evacuated. I heard about the fire. People were worried and serious. I had to be evacuated twice. I felt nervous. I was embarrassed when I went walking in puddles with my uncle and my boots got stuck twice. One boot came off right in the middle of a puddle and I couldn't balance. So I put my foot in the mud. I had to take a shower and change my socks.

SPEAKER 3: My dad said that the water would never trickle to our house, but I know now that even though people say things, it's not always true and that water can change a person's life so much. I evacuated to Valley City. I was worried as I thought about if our house was drowning. I was worried as I thought about if there was anything to come back to. I was worried as I combed my hair to go to Washington Elementary. In my stomach, it felt like a bomb was exploding. My legs felt like they were in the next room.

SPEAKER 4: When we got home from evacuation, we had to clean, clean the basement that smelled like mold and old gloppy gunk. We also had to chip the tile off the basement floor. When the hammer struck, the floor went kerplop. The Red Cross food was kind of gross. It tasted like old, dried out things. I looked around and on berms there were piles and piles of old flooded stuff. I picked up some mud. It was like mashed potatoes and applesauce. I saw my school get torn down. I felt like crying, but I did not. I could talk forever and ever, but I will not.

SPEAKER 5: The hardest things to throw away were my stuffed animals. Before the flood, my stuffed animals felt soft and furry. My favorite one was my cuddly Mickey Mouse. All of my stuffed animals looked so neat together. They always smelled fresher than fresh. Then the flood came. All of my toys were wiped out. They felt sticky and gooey. All of my stuffed animals looked like brown pieces of junk. Floods are more destructive than I thought. It's hard to get through them. People put their heads down, cup their faces with their hands, and sob.

RACHEL REABE: Again, those are the children of the Lincoln Elementary School with poems that they have written about the flood. Dr. Twohey, you're a psychologist and a professor at University of North Dakota in Grand Forks. Your reaction to some of the comments of the children.

DR. DENISE TWOHEY: Well, I wrote down a few of the comments while I was listening because they were so powerful, the images. The one was about the house was drowning. And I think that's a typical thing that children will do, is to make inanimate objects into people and then they can talk about what that feels like and how that house must feel.

But I noticed that little girl didn't really want to talk about how she felt, and I was concerned about that. She said, she would not cry. And she could cry all day, but she won't. She could talk all day, but she won't. And I thought this could be a problem. I think she's getting socialized into the same system that John Little was brought up with. And I think she could have some difficulties later.

RACHEL REABE: So as adults, people need to encourage children to talk about it, to think about it. I mean, even this elementary school that they are writing poems about it, they put together a quilt about the flood. Those sorts of things help.

DR. DENISE TWOHEY: Oh, absolutely. Those creative activities that give the children a chance to express themselves, maybe non-verbally, if they can't talk, but help them to acknowledge that there has been a change in their life. I also think it's very important how parents talk to them about the flood and to validate their feelings.

And like if they are feeling sad, or if they miss their house, or if they feel like they want to go home, even if they're in a new home that just feels like a house so far. Pat, your comment reminded me of the daughter of one of my colleagues who every now and then says she has to go home because her new house isn't home yet.

RACHEL REABE: Susan, you and Dennis have a daughter that still lives at home. Has it been hard when you are in this totally traumatic situation and have all the economic worries, and the insurance, and the buyout, and the angel fund, and all those things going on, and your own grief and pain, how do you then have anything left over to help the people you love get through it?

SUSAN CUTSHALL: I would say we pray a lot. I think God has provided all-- at all ends before and after and during, you know. And even our own daughter, she has no reflection on the flood. And that worries me because it needs to get out as soon as possible because burying this isn't going to help. And she doesn't say much, you know.

RACHEL REABE: She's at an age where they wouldn't talk anyway, though. Isn't your daughter--

SUSAN CUTSHALL: 14 now, oh, just turned 15.

RACHEL REABE: Yeah, so whether she'd been through a flood or not, she probably still wouldn't be talking to her parents as much as she would to her peers. When she moved, was she able to stay in the same school or the same group of friends, or is--

SUSAN CUTSHALL: She did for six months. She went to Central. And first time ever in Central. And so, basically, now she's going to Larimer School being bused. And she likes it there, learning new friends. But she's still keeping her old friends because, you know, just like Pat Moen's daughter was our older daughter's friend, and they've been friends since. 12, 15 years.

RACHEL REABE: So the families in the neighborhood are very tied together as well.

SUSAN CUTSHALL: Yes.

RACHEL REABE: Denise, have you seen lots of children come in for counseling? Have the counseling services here been overwhelmed with the response, or is there something about Scandinavian farmers that don't take well to counseling?

DR. DENISE TWOHEY: Well, actually, both of those are true. I think initially people weren't-- didn't have time to go to counseling because they were too busy just trying to put their electricity back and the furnace and so forth. But recently, there's been a surprising increase in mental health services in the area. Northeast Human Services was expecting their caseload to start decreasing now, but instead it's on the increase.

Domestic violence has gone up 47% in this community. I tried to find out about substance abuse, and although, the hospital doesn't-- the number of admissions isn't a good way to try to assess what that kind of problem looks like, but alcohol sales have increased considerably in this community. And I think that all kind of goes together and makes sense that people are coping in a lot of different ways and sometimes not in the healthiest ways.

RACHEL REABE: Do you see clearly the different stages of going through this? You know, we talk about the bargaining, the anger, the denial, but this isn't a death situation, but in a way, it is a death situation.

DR. DENISE TWOHEY: Right. Well, people in the trauma literature have their own stages. There are four of them. The hero stage, the disillusionment stage, the anger, and then rebuilding. And I heard Pat Owens say this morning that she feels as a community, we're in the anger stage.

RACHEL REABE: So almost through.

DR. DENISE TWOHEY: Almost through, but, you know, it takes one to three years probably. And as I mentioned before, individuals don't go through these stages and necessarily the same ways. Men and women might not go through the stages in the same ways.

RACHEL REABE: We are out of time. Pa Moen, Dennis and Susan Cutshall, John Little, thank you for sharing your lives with us. Denise Twohey, thanks for joining us today as well. This special Mainstreet Radio broadcast is a production of Minnesota Public Radio.

Our engineer today is Rick [INAUDIBLE] on location and Randy Johnson in Saint Paul. Our producer is Sarah Meyer. Dan Gunderson is the field producer. Executive producers Mel Sommer and Kate Smith. Minnesota Public Radio's Mainstreet Radio team is Leif Enger, Dan Gunderson, Mark Steil, Catherine Winter, and myself Rachel Reabe. We also invite you to visit the Mainstreet website. Go to www.mpr,org.

You can hear this program on the Mainstreet website and see the photographs that go along with it, as well as other Mainstreet reports. You can also send us your comments and suggestions via email. The address, again, www.mpr.org. MPR'S Mainstreet Radio coverage of rural issues is supported by the Blandin Foundation, committed to strengthening communities through grant making leadership training and convening.

We close this special two hour Mainstreet Broadcast with a piece of music written by J. Robert Hanson to commemorate the flood. Hanson lived on the Red River for 27 years in Moorhead, where he taught at Concordia College and conducted the Fargo-Moorhead Symphony. Commissioned by the Grand Forks schools, the piece premiered last week, performed by the combined bands of Grand Forks Central and Red River High schools.

The composer's program notes explain the piece opens with quiet percussion. Clarinets provide a steady rhythm intended to represent the constant flow of the river. The intensity grows with woodwinds, percussion and brass reaching a climax midway through the piece. The work closes with a representation of the strength, spirit, and faith shown by those involved in the mighty battle with the Red. Red River of the North 1997 is dedicated to those hardy people.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

SPEAKER 6: On the next All Things Considered, mega mergers in the banking industry, what they mean for bank customers. That story and the rest of the day's news on the next All Things Considered weekdays at 3:00 on Minnesota Public Radio, KNOW FM 91.1.

RACHEL REABE: You're listening to Minnesota Public Radio. It's 43 degrees at KNOW FM 91.1, Minneapolis Saint Paul. Twin cities weather today calls for cloudy skies and scattered showers, high of 45 degrees. Tomorrow, windy and mostly cloudy, with a high of 43 degrees. Current temperature, 43. The time, 1 o'clock.