Local News

FARGO, N.D. (AP) ― Bracing for a blizzard that could strain the sandbag levees protecting their homes, Fargo residents needed news: the latest from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the weather service, and mostly from each other.

Are the levees holding? Are winds whipping up waves to batter hastily built dikes? Are the highways closed?

For answers, they turned on the radio.

Even in an age of Twitter feeds, Facebook updates and text-messaging, Fargo's KFGO, an AM station riding out the flood behind a clay berm, has been a go-to for news-hungry residents. Reporters and hosts have been manning the microphone round the clock since the Red River started threatening this town with the flood of a century.

Listening to KFGO is a lot like walking into an on-the-air living room. Talk is familiar. People share personal details -- addresses, phone numbers, stories. Worn-out residents vent their frustration and their worry. They ask for help, and they offer a hand. News updates come not just from the station's reporters but from call-ins by a city official or a resident.

"They become our lifeline," said Clay County Sheriff Bill Bergquist, who listens himself and calls in when he needs to get information out fast: an area that needs to be cleared, a road closure to be avoided.

"The Mighty 790" shares the discomfort of the town's residents. The toilets are plugged up to prevent water rising through them. Staffers have been rotating through shifts and sleeping in the office, wearing the muddy boots and jeans that are standard in a town where many have done their time shoveling dirt into sandbags, building dikes or watching for leaks. The town's gratitude can be seen in the fruit and plates of brownies with thank-you notes dropped off in the kitchen.

"We've become a clearinghouse of information -- a two-way street," said news director Paul Jurgens, who's been home only two nights in the last week, often working through the night and then napping at the station. KFGO is in it to stay; The station paid some $20,000 to have the clay berm built around the station, and two generators are at the ready.

In normal times, KFGO -- still the home base for nationally syndicated liberal stalwart Ed Schultz -- runs canned overnight with a single person to oversee it. But it's been live 24 hours a day since Wednesday, doubling their usual staff of 25 to about 60 with help from reporters at sister FM stations.

"People know that if something is going to happen, they'll hear it here. If they need help, they're going to get it," Jurgens said. "People call in with a question, a few minutes later someone calls with the answer."

As Monday's snowstorm roared in, the anxiety level mounted and the calls poured in.

Local health officials call to say the clinic is offering up tetanus shots -- "important if you're going to be slushing around in that crap," says host Joel Heitkamp, a hulking man with a shaved head and a Harley-Davidson sweat shirt who spent 14 years in the state Legislature before turning to talk radio.

One man asks for help for his wife, who is stuck in Harwood, a hamlet wedged between the Sheyenne River and the flooding Red. Anyone know a way out?

A minute later, a caller gives directions on the air -- "you got to drive through some water, but you can get out."

With fears that waves will lash levees, more emergency sandbags are needed. A caller requests volunteers at Minnesota State Community and Technical College, where professors and administrators are coordinating the effort.

"How many are you talking? 50? 100?" says Heitkamp. "Give them the address -- and let me know when you have enough sandbaggers. Let us know or more will keep coming."

Heitkamp cuts to the weather forecast. Travel will soon be nearly impossible in some parts of North Dakota, with up to 16 inches of snow expected in some areas by Wednesday.

He passes the mike to Sandy Buttweiler -- "It's all yours, darling."

In all-weather boots, her blond hair piled high -- "haven't even had time to brush it today"-- Buttweiler takes over, kicking off the next segment, which she shares with co-host Jack Sunday.

One woman calls wondering if Moorhead will top its levees with plastic sheeting to protect them from waves. That question is passed on to city officials. Another wants to borrow a tanker truck to deliver water to 70 horses evacuated in the middle of night.

The conversation roller-coasters along with the experiences and the emotions of the town, says Buttweiler.

"You go from seeing your best friend losing his house to discussing whether a Nerf football can plug a drain," she says.

Buttweiler's pillow has been at the radio station, and she has first call on the corner couch. She plans to spend the next night or two at the station, as the snow comes down. The callers keep her going, she says.

The operation is no-nonsense, but it works. An hour after the call for help with sandbagging went out, about 200 volunteers were shoveling dirt in the below-freezing temperatures outside the state college.

One of those who came was Del Steckler, a high school teacher who monitors the station. He showed up to help with a pair of shovels and his 12-year-old son Shane.

"That's what we need at a time like this -- a communication channel," he said. "It lets people come together."

(© 2009 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)