KATHRYN (AP) -- Members of the National Guard used night-vision goggles and a Blackhawk helicopter to shore up a dam early Thursday as water from a tributary of the swollen Sheyenne River began eroding it -- threatening the small town of Kathryn.
Officials said on Wednesday that the Clausen Springs Dam would flood the town of Kathryn if it broke, so the town's 55 residents were evacuated and guardsmen went to work to strengthen the dam and try to change the flow of water against it. They used helicopters to lower 1-ton sandbags into trouble areas.
But overnight, water started seeping in around the edges of those sandbags. At about 3 a.m. Thursday, a quick reaction force of the National Guard was called in to help, said Lt. Col. Rick Smith, a Guard spokesman.
The guardsmen donned night-vision goggles and used a Blackhawk helicopter to lower more 1-ton sandbags at the site of the leakage. Smith said they planned to continue placing more sandbags there during the day Thursday.
"They are just putting reinforcements there to stop that leakage," he said.
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On Wednesday, residents fled to relatives' homes or a Red Cross shelter after officials went door to door telling them to get out. The Guard has about 35 soldiers in Kathryn, Smith said.
Fire Chief Paul Fisher was on Kathryn's Main Street Wednesday, using a two-way radio to monitor the flow of three culverts outside town. If they were to break, he said, "I'll make one more sweep through town and get out of here."
Kathryn is about 17 miles south of Valley City, which is battling record high water on the Sheyenne River. The Clausen Springs Dam is on a tributary of the river.
In Valley City, the Guard continued to patrol the dikes and watch for breaches on Thursday.
"Valley City is definitely not out of the woods," Smith said. The elderly, disabled and people living in low-lying areas had been urged to evacuate by 6 p.m. Wednesday to make sure emergency routes were kept open. Mayor Mary Lee Nielson said that would affect about 1,450 homes -- "not quite half the city" of nearly 7,000 people.
Nielson said she knows some people will stay in their homes but she hopes they will choose to leave.
"I told people in a nice way, 'If you don't have a reason to be here, to flush a toilet, leave,"' she said.
Fran Aune and her stepdaughter, Deb Wacha, were moving Aune's belongings out of her duplex Wednesday. Aune and her husband, Andrew, planned to set up a camper on a higher part of Valley City and wait out the floodwaters.
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"It's scary," she said. "We've been praying a lot."
Valley City State University, with an enrollment of about 1,000, canceled its spring semester on campus, which has been torn up by dike work, and planned to offer courses online instead.
The Sheyenne empties into the Red River, which is expected to reach a second flood crest of its own near Fargo this week. The Red crested at Fargo and neighboring Moorhead, Minn., late last month just short of 41 feet, after volunteers filled thousands of sandbags to raise levees above that mark. Projections of the river's second crest have been lowered to around 35.5 feet to 36 feet.
Roads across North Dakota were flooded and travelers were warned regularly about delays or detours due to high water. Amtrak has suspended service between Minot and St. Paul, Minn., because of track flooding east of Minot.
