Some Minot residents to be allowed home Wednesday

MINOT, N.D. (AP) — Residents in some northeast parts of Minot can start to return home Wednesday as the flooding Souris River continues to recede, said a spokesman in the North Dakota city.

Residents north of 6th Avenue NE and east of Broadway will be allowed back into their homes from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. starting Wednesday, city spokesman Dean Lenertz said.

Those homes were not flooded, but water continues to collect against the temporary levees protecting that area of the city, Lenertz said. The high water levels make it potentially dangerous to let residents move back into their homes overnight, he said.

“We're still concerned because the water is pretty high on those (levees),” he said.

Dozens of residents forced from their homes were allowed back on Friday and over the weekend as the river retreated. Those people were in the outermost areas of the northwest part of the evacuation zone. Lenertz did not immediately have an exact count.

About 11,000 people were evacuated from Minot neighborhoods nearest the river before it broke a high-water record that had stood for 130 years and later crested at about 1,561.7 feet above sea level, nearly 13 feet above flood stage at the city's Broadway Bridge. Lenertz said the fall of the river and the return of evacuees “definitely is a slow process,” and one that could be even more prolonged if additional heavy rain falls in the basin.

Snowmelt and heavy rain on both sides of the U.S.-Canada border led to this year's flooding and evacuations in Minot, North Dakota's fourth-largest city. The river on Monday fell below 1,558 feet above sea level, the previous record set in 1881.

Owners of about 600 more evacuated homes and businesses in the northeast part of the city might be able to return by Thursday. Officials likely will let the owners return once the river falls to 1,555 feet above sea level, which the National Weather Service forecast says could happen late Wednesday or early Thursday.

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