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Thursday, April 24, 1997

War games participants' minds back home in flooded Grand Forks, N.D.

MIDLAND, Texas (AP) - As Capt. David Johnson ponders what's awaiting him back home in North Dakota, only one word comes to mind.

"Depressing," said Johnson, a 28-year-old Air Force pilot whose wife and two small children have been evacuated from their flooded Grand Forks home.

Johnson is among 120 Grand Forks-based Air Force personnel stationed in Midland while participating in the annual Operation Roving Sands war games in New Mexico.

The 10-day air defense operation, which began Thursday, involves 20,000 American soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines, along with 2,800 air defense troops from Canada, Germany and the Netherlands.

A KC-135 pilot, Johnson's job is to refuel other planes during the maneuvers.

He admits his mind often wanders back northward, where the Red River has overtaken the plains.

"My wife was there and they gave her 15 minutes to get as much as she could and leave," said Johnson, one of the 30 here with homes in the submerged town. "The water was rising rapidly. She had just enough time to get clothes for our 7-week-old son and our 4-1/2-year-old."

Recently purchased flood insurance will cover the damage, which Johnson figures is extensive. His split-level home is just three miles from what used to be the Red River's banks.

His family has relocated to Oklahoma City and is living with his parents, who felt tragedy themselves in 1995 when they lost three friends in the federal building explosion.

Loss of lifestyles, not loss of life, is the affliction facing North Dakotans now.

"This is a great sorrow," said Johnson, who arrived here a week ago. "I wish I could've been there to help my wife take care of the kids and save some of the items from my house. I didn't want to come, but it was my duty."

Fellow KC-135 pilot Capt. Tom Davis said he and his wife worked out an evacuation plan before leaving for Midland.

"My wife was at our house - we live fairly close to the river - and she was on the treadmill watching the news," Davis said. "The further she got into her walk, the closer she noticed they were getting when they were talking about the flooding. She went outside and took a look around and saw our car floating away."

Like Johnson, Davis believes the first floor of his home is under water.

Their detachment commander, Major Bob Mahoney, said it was "deeply saddening" to leave North Dakota last Thursday knowing that the flood waters were bearing down on Grand Forks.

"All of us were doing sandbagging efforts downtown, helping the volunteers," Mahoney said. "We had to make the decision to come on or stay home knowing that the people's houses there were threatened by water. Our leadership decided we had made the commitment to support the Roving Sands exercises."

The bone dry terrain that awaited them here gave Davis and others a moment of pause.

"We actually made the observation the other day, wondering how much of our water you could deal with out here," Davis said. "We recognized that it was kind of dry out here, but I guess we all expressed how happy some of us were to be in Texas, not worried about mosquitoes and enjoying the sunshine." Send a Letter to the Editor about This Story | Start or Join A Discussion about This Story
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