Nation: WHAT TO DO UNTIL THE FLOOD COMES

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Race with the Crest. Yet when the high waters arrived, it became apparent that a dike built last summer would not hold. Mayor Harold Thomforde broadcast an appeal for help, and soon 50 high school youngsters appeared. Working most of the night sandbagging the sagging dike, the youngsters saved 350 homes. The next day, the mayor organized 1,000 youths from the local high school, surrounding schools and a branch of the University of Minnesota. They labored in shifts on into the night, keeping the level of the dikes just above the ever-rising waters. But by 4:30 a.m., the river was still coming up, and the 250 youngsters on the night shift were clearly exhausted.

Once again, Thomforde went on the radio and called for assistance, and this time 150 adults came to man the dikes. At dawn, the mayor again asked for help, and whole families streamed to the dike lines. Nearly 400 people, including a dozen teaching nuns from Corbett College and Mount St. Benedict Academy, were at work at 7 a.m. At last the waters began to recede.

Treading Water. Other towns less prepared than Crookston suffered heavily. Forty-five miles downstream from Crookston in Grand Forks, N. Dak., individual homeowners suffered severe losses. The swirling Red River rapidly rose to a crest of 45½ ft. and flooded 50 houses in the city's most expensive residential districts. There was no organized dike work in Grand Forks. Individuals tried various schemes to save their homes, such as encasing the lower portions of the houses with polyethylene sheets and keeping pumps going inside, but to little effect.

In the exclusive Riverside Park section of Grand Forks, one citizen bitterly condemned the local government: "The city took it all very casually. We were told that we were on our own and even had to pay 150 for sandbags." Mayor Hugo Magnuson blames the lack of preparation on the people living along the river. Magnuson says that they refused to allow the Army engineers to build necessary dikes because of property damage that might be caused by heavy equipment. But some residents contend that they had in fact sought a permanent dike, only to be refused by the Army engineers.

For both Crookston and Grand Forks, the danger was over by week's end. But for other communities in states to the south—Kansas, Illinois and Missouri —serious flooding was yet to come. It is obvious that comprehensive federal programs are needed to protect the nation's river basins from the almost annual ravages of flooding. Operation Foresight's emergency measures were helpful but makeshift. Colonel Richard Hesse of the Army Corps of Engineers admits: "The work has been done in great haste and does not meet acceptable standards in most cases." In the long run, says Hesse, flood disasters will persist until local governments prohibit building on lands annually threatened by inundation. More holding dams and reservoirs must also be built to control the rampaging rivers. Until that can be done, substantial parts of the Midwest can only try to tread water.