wearmanyhats

Check out Fargo, North Dakota.  Here is a bustling city filled with young professionals working in a fast paced city filled with many factories and thriving businesses.

Enter the Red River, which flows toward Grand Forks and then Canada on its way to the Hudson Bay.  It is fed by dozens  of other rivers as the rain and snowmelt run to the sea.  As the weather patterns change and more water comes into the Prehistoric Lake Aggasiz the river gets higher every year.   This year the city valiantly fought and won the first battle of the water, but the price on the small businesses has been tough to bear.

Millions of dollars of revenue has been stopped as businesses closed for the possible flooding.  In the past week, Fargo has been hit with at least two blizzards, and people are still fighting to keep water from their homes.  After days of being closed, the mayor asked small businesses to open back up.  The money lost by the small businesses being closed or people evacuating the town is still not measured, but is most likely in the millions.

Fargo is not unusual in many ways.  It’s a college town, just like many others.  It has industry, just like other cities.  It has many businesses and is thriving.  And like many other cities under stress, the people pull together to make things happen.  The volunteers put together three million sandbags to keep the Red River from overflowing. That’s a dedicated community.

The loss of millions of dollars in a weakened economy is more than one could expect in a city. But these people have resilience.  The city will rebound after time,  because the citizens will pull together. And Fargo is not unusual.  Detroit has lost jobs before, had foreclosures before, and bounced back.  Fargo is just a miniature example of how bad times will not last forever.

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