Red River Valley - Flood-fighters in and around Fargo, N.D., continued to fill sandbags, build dikes and plan for evacuations this morning after a dire new forecast called for the Red River to swell to its highest level ever by Saturday.

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Annie, Doug Stensguard's dog, surveys her yard in Fargo, North Dakota. The five-acre yard is now under floodwater from the Red River, which is expected to crest on Saturday at a record 41 feet. (Photo: Carolyn Kaster / AP)

    Authorities used airboats, helicopters and large military trucks to rescue dozens of trapped residents in the North Dakota towns of Oxbow and Abercombie. And if the rising river weren't enough to heighten anxiety, 8 inches of snow blew in with ice and wind to handicap sandbagging efforts and close highways not already swamped with floodwater.

    Snow was expected to continue in the area through this morning dropping an additional half-inch. Temperatures were expected to hit 25 degrees today, the weather service said.

    "It's uncharted territory," Fargo Mayor Dennis Walaker said on Wednesday. "If nature has anything else to throw at us, it'd have to be a tornado."

    The mayor pleaded for more sandbag volunteers and urged exhausted crews to raise the dikes another foot -- to 43 feet -- before Saturday's expected crest of 41 feet. That would eclipse the 1897 record level of 40.1 feet in Fargo and the 39.57 feet reached during the devastating 1997 flood.

    Beginning today, Fargo officials will start distributing evacuation information.

    "People are starting to get worried," said Robin Mattson, a staff sergeant with the Minnesota National Guard, supervising intersections across the river in Moorhead.

    When one resident tried to drive his sand-filled pickup over an earthen levee, police were called to issue a warning.

    "He ignored the National Guard to put his own sand in, endangering everyone else," Mattson said.

    For the most part, though, neighbors continue to help each other in an overwhelming spirit of cooperation. For a while Wednesday afternoon, Moorhead resident Scott Peterson worried we wouldn't get enough sandbags to raise his backyard dike the extra foot authorities have requested.

    Just then, a group of college students arrived along with a truck towing a trailer of sandbags.

    "If it wasn't for Concordia College," Peterson said, "our neighborhood would be under."

    Dramatic Rescues

    In Oxbow, a small town just south of Fargo, water from the Red spilled onto several residential streets, trapping homeowners. Cass County Sheriff Paul Laney said airboats helped on a dozen rescues and he anticipates many more in coming days.

    "A large number of people are in their homes and we know they're going to need to come out," he said, adding that airboats and military trucks are the only vehicles that could pass through some of the streets submerged in two feet of standing water.

    A Coast Guard helicopter plucked a family from a farmhouse 2 miles southwest of Abercrombie, N.D., where overland flooding from the Wild Rice River increased rapidly. Richland County spokesman Warren Stokes said five adults and one child were rescued from the house by a basket and taken to a social service center in Wahpeton.

    Flood-fighting crews in Abercrombie had put up dikes to protect the town against Red River flooding, but they shifted their efforts to battle overland flooding from Wild Rice River to the west.

    "We've never worried about anything from that direction," said Vice Mayor David Hammond, adding that the town would open its school to house any farmers flooded out of their homes.

    Across the river in Wolverton, Minn. -- which sits an eighth of a mile from the river bank -- water flowed into the streets in lower areas. Maryann Olthoff was hoping that sandbag dikes up to 5-feet tall around her house would hold back the water, which she said was higher than anybody in the town of 120 people has ever seen.

    "God willing and the creek don't rise," Olthoff said.

    Sandbagging Frozen Rocks

    Back up in Fargo, bundled-up residents and volunteers braved the miserable conditions, piling up sandbags in vulnerable neighborhoods amid blowing snow, temperatures in the 20s and a strong wind.

    "The bags are starting to freeze," said Martin Fisher, adding another layer of sandbags onto his backyard dike. "That's a problem. You can't put rock on top of rock."

    Despite the city's efforts to keep the bags warm by storing them overnight in a heated garage, some bags were as hard as stone.

    "Frozen!" one volunteer called out, alerting the rest of the assembly line.

    Many flood-fighters swapped their rain boots for their winter boots, anticipating the pain that comes from standing outside for hours at a time in the icy mud. But slinging sandbags really builds up a sweat, and you hardly notice the cold, according to Bill Eral, who drove up from St. Paul to help.

    With an outside fire pit, Sarah Keim's driveway was the place to be in Fargo's Oak Creek neighborhood. A steady stream of neighbors and volunteers popped in to warm their hands and nibble on homemade banana bread.

    Between the snow and the flooding, several highways from Ada to Zerkel were closed or under water in western Minnesota. State officials urged motorists to call 5-1-1 or click on www.511mn.org for current road conditions.

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    Staff writers Curt Brown and Bob Von Sternberg contributed to this report.

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