Moorhead hopes for big sandbag weekend

After Moorhead, Minn., officials issued a CodeRed phone alert Thursday seeking volunteers, about 50 showed up Friday at Moorhead’s sandbag operation center to help stack sandbags on pallets for storage prior to a spring flood.

Officials have said they would like to have 70 volunteers on hand at any given time in order to keep things running as efficiently as possible.

Meanwhile, Fargo celebrated its 2 millionth sandbag with a 1:30 p.m. ceremony Friday afternoon.

More than 10,000 volunteers helped fill those bags.

Fargo’s goal is to have 3 million bags filled by March 19.

Workers who helped stack bags on pallets Friday in Moorhead included three prisoners from the Becker County (Minn.) Jail and four from the Clay County Jail.

Clay County Deputy Monty Martin said that for every 10 days of work the Clay prisoners put in they get one day taken off their sentence.

Moorhead’s sandbag production will continue today, while Fargo’s will take the day off.

Moorhead officials said Friday they hope to get many of their bags stored by the end of the weekend.

The city plans to fill 1 million sandbags, with about 600,000 stored on pallets at the city’s sandbag operations center at 2419 12th Ave. S.

Approximately 400,000 sandbags will be stored in removable truck boxes called roll-offs.

The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead is owned by Forum

Communications Co.

Tags: news, moorhead, flood, sandbag