FARGO - Seventy-five members of the Minnesota Wing of the Civil Air Patrol are on the ground in the Fargo-Moorhead area filling sandbags and building dikes in areas threatened by the rising Red River.
"We've been checking and packing our gear and finalizing our call-down list for the past week in anticipation of getting the call," 1st Lt. Steven Parker, the St. Cloud Composite Squadron's emergency services officer, stated in a news release. Parker, a former CAP cadet, is a full-time student at St. Cloud State University who will be commissioned as a U.S. Marine Corps second lieutenant in May.
Twelve cadets and two senior officers left St. Cloud Regional Airport Tuesday evening for the Fargo-Moorhead area. The St. Cloud squadron was working Wednesday morning south of Moorhead with CAP members from the Minnesota Wing's Anoka and North Hennepin squadrons laying sandbags in flood prone areas.
Minnesota's Hutchinson, Red Wing, St. Croix, Mankato and St. Paul squadrons have similar missions at other locations. Other squadrons are en route. Several senior officers and cadets are working at the mission base at Fargo's Hector International Airport.
Maj. Paul Pieper, Minnesota Wing's emergency services director, said Minnesota air crews are standing by to assist. "We just finished up a series of training missions in anticipation of supporting disaster relief efforts in the Red River Valley, as well as other areas of Minnesota threatened with flooding," he stated in the release.
