I first started at the Bemidji (Minn.) Pioneer as an intern in the summer of 1996. That would begin six years as a news reporter, sports reporter and copy editor for a small, six-day-per-week daily newspaper in northern Minnesota. I wrote a large range of stories from multiple beats, to features to sports, my favorite being the coverage of the Red Lake Reservation High School basketball team named the Warriors. Here is a collection of my stories from my time at the Pioneer.
May 2, 1997
By Devlyn Brooks
Staff Writer
Most predictions as to when flood evacuees can return to the Greater Grand Forks area range from four to six weeks. However, there is a specific portion of those that might not be returning for months, according to Scott Wyatt, unit supervisor with the Minnesota Department of Health.
Wyatt is referring to those who were evacuated from hospitals, nursing homes and group homes for the handicapped because of flooding in the Red River Valley.
The group is a small portion of those who were evacuated, he admitted, but will probably be kept from their homes longer than most evacuees because of extensive damage to the medical facilities.
Since the beginning of April, all along the Red River Valley, medical facilities have been scrambling to place patients and residents in other institutions across Minnesota. Most of that coordinating has been done by Wyatt, who has been scouring the state for open nursing home beds, which are in short supply.
Beginning in Ada with the evacuation of a hospital, a nursing home and group homes and continuing with the recent evacuations of the Greater Grand Forks region, Wyatt and a partner in Thief River Falls have been networking with medical facilities across the state to place patients.
A hospital and nursing home in Warren and a nursing home in Halstad were also prepared to be evacuated, but with sandbagging and other efforts it was not necessary, he said.
"Water, at times, was even lapping over the last dirt road out of town in Halstad," he said. "It was close."
Immediately after the dikes broke in East Grand Forks on April 19, more than 100 residents of the Good Samaritan Home were evacuated to a temporary shelter established at the Northland Technical and Community College in Thief River Falls. From there, residents were transported to whatever area nursing homes had open beds, Wyatt said.
As of Wednesday, there were five evacuated nursing home residents staying at the Beltrami County Nursing Home in Bemidji, two at the Northern Pines Good Samaritan Center in Blackduck, two at a nursing home in Clearbrook and the Shevlin and Bagley nursing homes had been notified they might be used as well. A majority of the residents have been transported to nursing homes farther west than Bemidji, however.
In addition, six patients of Gran Forks' United Hospital rehabilitation unit were evacuated to other facilities in northwest Minnesota, and patients at an Ada hospital were evacuated to Crookston and Mahnomen facilities.
Local emergency medical technician Don Drusch was one of a group of four EMT's to help evacuate a group of United Hospital patients to Bemidji.
"It was very traumatic for some of the patients," he said. "For two of them, it was the first time they had ever seen a helicopter -- let alone fly in one. Another one of the patients was suffering from hysteria pretty badly."
Drusch's group, using two ambulances, met helicopters evacuating the patients at a rest stop located several miles east of East Grand Forks and transported them to Bemidji.
Some nursing home patients from Grand Forks who were evacuated locally were first flown to Crookston by helicopter, and later transferred to Bemidji area nursing homes by Medi-van.
All area medical facilities reported Wednesday that the patients or nursing home residents have adjusted well to their new temporary homes, and the facilities' administrators said their staffs have handled the extra workloads graciously.
According to Wyatt, those facilities which have admitted patients from flood evacuated facilities will be compensated by the federal Medicare system at the rates they charge for the cases they accepted.
As for when the nursing home residents can return to their homes, Wyatt said it is unknown. But it could be between three to six months for those who resided in the Ada or East Grand Forks facilities, which were extensively damaged by flooding.
"It might be more economical to tear the (East Grand Forks) building down and start over," he said.
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