ENDERLIN, N.D. - When the Bartholomay family left for work and school Tuesday, their rural Enderlin home was fine and County Road 7 was passable. By the time Sandy received a call just a few hours later, the situation was quickly deteriorating.
“Things have changed. I left home this morning at 6:30, and who would have known that this was going to happen in four hours?” she said.
She and her daughter, Alysia, returned to find the North Dakota National Guard, Cass County Sheriff’s Department and neighbors working quickly to stop the water that was rising rapidly on a path toward their home.
They live near the Maple River, which was showing its unpredictable nature in full force Tuesday.
“They didn’t realize this river would be doing what it’s doing right now, so they didn’t prepare and now it’s come up really fast,” said Deputy Jade Van Den Einde with the Cass County Sheriff’s Department. “The roads are washed out on both sides of their farm, so they can’t get supplies in very easily, like sandbags and stuff, so they called us for help, and we called the National Guard for help, to help them.
“We have a lot of communication between all of us, and we work closely together which has helped a lot because we can’t do it alone.”
Van Den Einde led the Guard’s quick response force team from their station at the Hickson, N.D., Community Center to the farm in rural Enderlin.
“They’re shoring up the north side of the farmstead to keep the water from getting to the basement,” said Air Force Staff Sgt. Christopher Kleven, a member of the quick response force team who serves with the North Dakota National Guard’s 1st Battalion, 188th Air Defense Artillery Regiment.
The basement is also where Alysia’s poofy, bright pink prom dress awaits Saturday night. It’s the one item she was focused on saving. Her prom date’s family already lost their home to floodwaters in Sheldon, North Dakota.
By late morning, Alysia’s mission was impeded by a road so severely washed out that fish were swimming upstream across it to spawn.
The road was too precarious for the heavy, high-wheeled vehicles the Guard’s quick response force team brought in, so the team off-loaded sandbags on one side of the washout. A neighbor drove back and forth across the washed-out road in a small John Deere tractor with a bucket, which the Guard members filled with sandbags before riding across with the man, who referred to himself as “just a local farmer,” to place the bags near the home.
A bus loaded with high-school students arrived wanting to help Alysia and her family, but it was too dangerous for them to cross to the farm and assist. They stood back, feeling helpless.
Shelby Albert, a friend of the family who has horses there, was able to pass through on the loader with Sandy and Alysia to help them move items from the basement, but a Guard member with the quick response force team felt confident the family will stay high and dry.
“I think they’ll be fine. I don’t think they’re going to get any water,” said Air Force Senior Master Sgt. Timothy Laney, with the 119th Civil Engineer Squadron. “The road may go and they may be stuck in there, but they’re not going to get wet. … Their house is not going to get wet.”
Cutting a path for the water to flow across the road helped the farm, where Laney said the water dropped six inches on the dike once the water had cut through. Based on that, “we made the call to come back out before this [road] gave way, and we were all going to be stuck on the other side. There’s nothing more we can do here. They’ll be good to go.”
The county engineer agreed, assessing the situation and the 30 yards of sandbags added by the Guard members. He deemed the farmstead stable by 1 p.m.
“We appreciate everything that people have been doing. We just can’t thank people enough,” Sandy said.