When the Red River rose to unprecedented heights in the Fargo-Moorhead area of northwestern Minnesota, a crew of four from the Terex ASV undercarriage production facility in Cohasset, Minn., headed out with a truck load of machines ready to help.
More than $295,000 dollars worth of equipment, including four Terex ASV compact track loaders and a tracked utility vehicle, were sent from Terex ASV in Grand Rapids, Minn., to the city of Moorhead. With their extremely low ground pressure and ability to work in muddy conditions where other machines cannot go, the compact track loaders and the ST-50 tracked utility vehicle were used to build secondary dikes and other dikes to protect the city’s sewer system.
A Terex ASV ST-50 was the first vehicle to drop off filled bags within minutes of code red alert going out. Several hundred people filed out to shore up the dike in that section of town, and the ST-50 was able to place the bags within feet of the weak spot. The ST-50 dramatically reduced the amount of labor needed to reach hard to navigate areas. Then the ST-50 transported more than 100 loads of sandbags to critical areas to shore up the dikes in North Fargo.
A Genie GTH-5519 telehandler, donated by Loegering Manufacturing Inc., a business unit of Terex Construction, in Casselton, N.D., was being used to load trucks with sand bags. Earlier that week, the GTH-5519 outfit with a set of prototype QTS quad-style tracks, driven by Loegering engineer Ron Hansen, was used in north Moorhead to deliver sandbags to hard to reach areas of the dike process.
Terex ASV donated the equipment free of charge for as long as the city needs to use it for flood prevention efforts and clean up activities.
Terex Area Director — North America Compact Equipment Del Carver, who lived in Fargo for 15 years and worked in Casselton, N.D., just 25 mi. from the Fargo-Moorhead area said, “When the city of Moorhead called asking for assistance with flood relief, we were more than willing to help out. Terex Corporation’s global mission is to improve people’s lives and we believe these machines and the team members who volunteered to operate the equipment will have a direct impact on the lives of those living in the Fargo-Moorhead region of the Red River Valley flood plain.”
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, more than 122,000 people live in the Fargo-Moorhead area where more than four million sand bags were filled to hold back the North-running, Red River.
Only 25 mi. west from Moorhead is the Loegering Manufacturing Inc. site in Casselton. President of Loegering Kurt Bollman said, “Loegering has only suffered on a minor level. Our loading docks were shut down for about five hours due to overland flooding. We had to hire pumps to help the DOT pumps that could not keep up.”
While the manufacturing facility did not sustain terrible damage, some employees’ property has not been as fortunate. According to Bollman, Pete Stanek, the undercarriage engineering manager at Loegering, was evacuated from south Moorhead. Stanek’s family was moved to Detroit Lakes and Stanek made several trips back to Moorhead to help in the flood fight. In addition to Stanek and his family, “About 75 percent of our employees have friends or family whose property is in danger,” said Bollman, whose own home is located five blocks from the river.
Removing millions of sandbags and cleaning up the garbage and mud left behind after the river finally retreats will be another long, slow process, aided by the work of the Terex ASV machines.
For more information, visit www.terex.com.
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