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FARGO North Dakota residents Saturday anxiously watched freezing waters lapping the top of levees in the worst flooding in 112 years as President Barack Obama vowed help in battling nature.
Officials fear some 30,000 people could be left homeless in the northern plains if the Red River, swollen fed by melting snow, breaks through levees protecting Fargo as well as Moorhead lying on the opposite bank in Minnesota.
Some 3,500 people have already been evacuated, as the icy waters began breaching outlying levees as well as miles of sandbag dikes thrown up in the past few days by thousands of desperate volunteers.
But with most of the temporary sandbag dikes now in place, many were watching to see if the river levels would rise as expected to a 112-year record of 43 feet by 1800 GMT on Saturday.
At 615 am Saturday the waters were measured at 40.82 feet, just inches below the top of Fargos tallest levee which stands at 41.3 feet.
Obama vowed Saturday to do everything to help flood victims in both North Dakota and neighboring Minnesota.
We will do what must be done to help in concert with state and local agencies and non-profit organizations, and volunteers who are doing so much to aid the response effort, he said in his weekly address.
He has issued a major disaster declaration for both states to enable them to receive federal emergency funding.
And acting Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) administrator Nancy Ward has been dispatched to the region to help with relief operations.
It is the first natural disaster to confront the fledgling Obama administration, which appears to be keen to avoid the mistakes of former president George W. Bush.
The Bush administration was widely criticized for bungling its response to Hurricane Katrina which hit New Orleans in 2005 in one of the countrys worst natural disasters.
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said the federal government was ready to house and feed 30,000 people for up to a week.
