CNN iReport

It was really tough to find places to volunteer today, which is a good problem to have.  Earlier in the day we assisted a co-worker on the dikes around his development.  We called the volunteer line several times throughout the day and they didn't have much information on places to help, they said they were full on volunteers.  In addition the filling of the sandbags at the Fargodome was supposedly shutdown at 6pm.

Later on in the evening we called again and they said that help was needed over at Nemzick Hall on the Moorhead State University.  So 4 of us got in the truck and headed over to the other side of the river to Moorhead.

The city had lifted the closure of the Interstate as well as most roads in town so it made getting around very easy.  In addition the traffic was very low so that was a non-issue.

On the way over to Nemzick we heard on the radio that volunteers were needed in North Fargo at two seperate locations so we headed up there.  Fortunately at both locations they had enough volunteers so we headed back over to Moorhead.

Once we arrived there we found out that there wasn't any direct help needed, they just wanted about 150 to 200 people around in case they needed anything taken care of immediately.

We hung out for about an hour and were just about ready to take off when they told us they needed two bus loads of people to head into the voluntary evacuated area of South Moorhead on Dale Ave to add some feet to a low spot in one of the dikes.

There was an instant rush of people to the door.  It felt alot like a war zone, no one wanted to get left behind and everyone wanted to help, as that is what we came to do.  Even while being bused over, there was an air of intensity throughout the bus.

Once arriving everyone exploded out of the buses and instantly headed to the truck with all of the sandbags.  Lines started forming as we handing the sandbags on down to where they were needed.  The truck was emptied out farely quickly and we were told that another truck would be here in 15 minutes.  After waiting around for a while people noticed that there was a dumpster full of frozen sandbags.  A group headed over there and started breaking them up.  It didn't take long for another line to form and we started sending those over to the dike.  Luckily it didn't take long to get through the top layer and into the core of the pile where we found unfrozen ones.

It was really great to see people wanting to help out and taking the initiative to do what needs to be done and even go the extra, extra mile of making the best out of the resources available.