Last Updated: May 31, 2000
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One of three winning stories by Mike Jacobs of the Grand Forks (N.D.)
Herald that won the editorial writing category of the 1998 ASNE Distinguished
Writing Awards.
Saturday, May 3, 1997
One thing must be clear to anyone who wanders around our cities:
How hard we worked to save them.
The sandbag dikes run for many blocks along the river. The clay dikes
run for many miles.
And still, we lost.
It is hard to accept this bitter truth, even two weeks after the dikes
broke and the city was flooded.
How hard we worked.
How hard we fought the rising water.
How confident we were that we would turn it back.
All of this contributes to the shock of losing, the sense of disappointment,
the well of anger, the sense of grief.
It is vital that we understand that all of these reactions are normal.
We have suffered a trauma as deep as any community. It was unimaginable
before it happened, and we will be shaking our heads about it for many
years to come.
The river was a challenge, and we rose to meet it. Throughout the days
leading to the crisis, we rallied ourselves to fill more sandbags and make
more sandwiches. We felt the community drawing together, and we celebrated
it. Together.
We lost that battle. The river was bigger than we were, even all of
us together.
Now, we need to hear the voice that propelled us in the days that we
fought together. That voice told us two important things. The first was
that our community was important enough to fight for, and that we had to
fight together.
Nothing that has happened has changed these truths. Events have only
made them starker.
These are very special places.
Before the flood, these were cities with character. Neighborhoods were
distinctive, each with its own identity and the loyalty of its residents.
Downtown was lively, with galleries, stores selling all manner of collectibles,
great restaurants, night spots, apartments. These supplemented commercial
centers spread around our cities, serving customers from a huge geographical
area. The same for our hospital. Our university.
The preceding paragraph is written in the past tense. It has to be.
Our cities are damaged, and we don't know what the future holds.
One thing we do know, however, and that is that the future depends on
us.
We need to bring the same determination, the same confidence, the same
spirit to our effort to rebuild Grand Forks that we brought to the effort
to save it.
We lost once, but the loss need not be permanent. We can succeed. Together.
Then, decades from now, the pain will be replaced by pride in how hard
we worked to regain what the river took from us. We will be winners then.
