Faces of the Diversion: April Walker

April Walker: [00:00:14] Hi, I’m April Walker, I’m the local affairs manager for Red River Valley Alliance. Really the role of the local affairs manager entails being kind of the go-between between the Metro Flood Diversion Authority and ASN and Hatch, which is the contractor and the designer for the project.

[00:00:36] An average day involves the review of a lot of technical documents that come back and forth between the different groups we’re working with, and coordination of the different groups of people involved as well. So we might be talking with the designers and the contractors or we might be talking with the Authority and the designers, just depends on the topic. But a lot of technical document review, a lot of meetings, a lot of coordination.

[00:01:08] In 2009, which of course was the flood of record, I as a City of Fargo employee had an important role in planning and executing the delivery of the emergency flood protection. And so that meant that I placed a pretty heavy burden on my family during that time. My children were in middle school, we found a place for them to go out of state with relatives so that we didn’t have to worry about them.

[00:01:36] My home is in rural Cass County outside of West Fargo and has its own issues with flooding, and I left all of that responsibility to my husband while I worked diligently for the city trying to protect city infrastructure and private property within city limits. That was very difficult to do. My children are still upset about missing out on the flood fighting, but at the time it was something we had to choose to do so that we could do what we had to do as the responsible adults.

[00:02:13] The 2009 flood of record peaked on my actual birthday, and I can remember feeling like it was truly a gift watching the water recede after days of exhausting buildup and the changing levels as we were told it was going to get higher and higher. It was quite the relief to see it peak at 40.8 and not 44, and start receding. With exhaustion and everything else going on it really felt like a gift.

[00:02:51] This project will mean peace of mind to the residents of Fargo. It means we are not digging up athletic fields to find borrow for emergency levees. It means we’re not pulling high school and middle school kids out of school to sandbag on an annual basis. It means we’re not closing non-essential businesses, we’re not evacuating hospitals and nursing homes… I still think about the people that we had to evacuate in 2009 from the hospitals and how difficult that must have been for them in their recoveries and their families. It means we can go back to not dreading the snow melt and enjoying the normal milestones of life each spring.