Souris River Flood Damage Pegged at Nearly $700M

Souris River flooding last summer caused more than $690 million in damage in the northern North Dakota counties of Ward and McHenry. The Army Corps of Engineers says most of the damage was in Minot, where more than 4,000 homes and businesses in North Dakota’s fourth-largest city were swamped and thousands of people were forced to evacuate. The corps’ post-flood report estimates that such a flood will occur only once in 500 or more years. It was caused by heavy spring snowmelt and rainfall that the corps says “overwhelmed” the river management system. The corps recommends changes such as more river and rain gauges and better hydrologic modeling.