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American Morning

North Dakota Resident Wants to Stay Put Despite Flood Risks

Aired April 11, 2001 - 09:41   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Residents of Minnesota and North Dakota are fighting the floods again and hoping there won't be a repeat of the 1997 disaster.

CNN's Jeff Flock reports on one resident who's just rebuilt from that flood disaster and may have to do it all over again.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEFF FLOCK, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Tom Edwards doesn't give up easy.

(on camera): How was it in this basement when you came back in after the water went away?

TOM EDWARDS: Everything was covered in silt, solid silt. And it was slippery, it was treacherous.

FLOCK (voice-over): This was what the great flood of '97 did to where he and his family lived, what they owned.

(on camera): Did you think about bailing out?

EDWARDS: Not really.

FLOCK (voice-over): What he thought about was rebuilding. He redid the basement, put in a new bathroom, new carpet. He did all the work himself to save money. He is almost done.

But now the bulldozers are outside his door again, building another makeshift levee to hold back another flood from his backyard.

EDWARDS: They're doing the best that they can, obviously, to protect us right now, but it's a Band-Aid, you know, and you're starting to hemorrhage and you're putting a Band-Aid on it.

FLOCK (on camera): The truth is the government knows that it's a Band-Aid. That's why they've been buying Tom Edwards' neighbors out. They bought this house back here and they want his, too -- that's so that they can bulldoze them and put up a permanent levee to protect against the next 54-foot flood of the century.

EDWARDS: It's just never going to work. You build it to 60 feet, the good Lord's going to tell you he's going to send 62 feet. FLOCK (voice-over): So why doesn't he just take the buyout and get a new house?

EDWARDS: You can go and find a new box to live in. That's basically what it is. It's a box.

FLOCK: And this is a home. To the critics of government bailouts, Edwards says he got none when he decided to stay here in 1997, just the settlement on his flood insurance, which amounted to less than he's paid in premiums over the years.

So as long as they've got the spirit and the money enough to fight, the Edwards family intends to stay.

EDWARDS: Just because it's home. I mean, it's home. Crazy as it sounds, we like it here.

FLOCK: I'm Jeff Flock, CNN, Grand Forks, North Dakota.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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