A water thought experiment

Imagine a massive tube, 235.5 feet across, that starts in Jamestown. This tube goes 99 miles long straight east, into Fargo, across the Red River and into Moorhead, Minn., where it ends.

Now, in your mind, fill that tube with water.

Or, if you like, imagine you are standing by an American football field, with every inch of it, including the end zones, covered in water. Then, imagine that water rising 74.6 miles straight up into the air.

That is the amount of water that will have gone through Jamestown in 2009, according to Army Corps of Engineers estimates. That’s 520,000 acre feet of water.