Editor’s note: Ryan Bakken toured the near south side of Grand Forks, the first part of the city to get hit by flood waters, in a U.S. Coast Guard boat. Here’s his report.

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It looks like a water amusement park a block north of the corner of South Washington Street and DeMers Avenue.

The water flowing north down Washington meets an obstacle in the railroad bridge a block north of DeMers. That’s where the underpass is. And that means the water is 20 feet high there.

Debris – plastic pop cans, balls of all sports, lumber, a bobber, a light bulb, an oar, a sled, a snow board, among other objects – piles up against the southern edge of the bridge.

But tires and garbage cans aren’t stopped. As if they’re trapped in a whirlpool, the tires circle between the bridge and DeMers, where the current sends them back north. They look like tiny rafts floating in a water amusement park.

They’d look that way, that is, except the water is the color of hot chocolate. And where debris has collected, the water has become stagnant. It smells like a fish-cleaning house.

If it’s like this in the busiest and most central location in Grand Forks, what’s it like closer to the Red River? Before we find out, our U.S. Coast Guard boat must help evacuate a man who held out for three days in a mandatory evacuation area.

Mark Olson, who lived at 1208 Sixth Ave. N., signaled the boat with a white towel hanging from the front door. It was his white flag of surrender.

‘‘I just decided it was no use,’’ Olson said. ‘‘I didn’t know we had to be evacuated, because I have no TV or radio. I knew something was going on, but I wanted to stay with my bird and fish. I thought I could wait it out. I couldn’t.’’

Lee Kerniskey, a member of the Coast Guard from Omaha, Neb., has been a part in many such evacuations the past few days in areas supposed to have been cleared.

‘‘Yesterday, we picked up two guys from the roof of a bar,’’ Kerniskey said. ‘‘They were drunk, so they were real friendly. But they wouldn’t go unless we took their dog, so we did.

‘‘I don’t understand why they do it, but I don’t get mad. I just do my job and that’s to ask people if they want out.’’

Destruction and hope

The boat tour offers horror, humor and hope:

¤ At DeMers and Washington, the current runs west and north, the stoplights are still working, the billboard advertising the Shrine Circus in Grand Forks April 25-27 is obviously in error, and the electronic message board continues to flash its advertisements.

¤ The construction of a dike made of sand and gravel along Washington duels with the current.

¤ The fire station on DeMers is protected by sand bags, has three Jet-Skis out front and still carries this on its sign – ‘‘Sandbaggers needed. Please report to the Civic Auditorium.’’

¤ A washtub filled with garden hose and a sprinkler attachment float past.

¤ We exit DeMers on Fourth Avenue South, but need to dodge a station wagon in the roadway – water up to its windshield and pointing the opposite direction.

¤ On Oak Street, the water is 2 feet high, too shallow for the motor to operate. This is the first of the surprises – and hopes. Contrary to popular belief, not every home east of South Washington is flooded on the first floor. In fact, in this area, most aren’t.

As we head east, about 75 to 80 percent of the homes appear to be dry on the first floor. Virtually all of the concrete foundations have water against 1-2 feet high, meaning basements are full. But most homes are built up a few steps, meaning the ground floors are dry. The margin between wet and dry is a few inches – the water being either a few inches shy of the first floor or a few inches above it.

A dog barks from a house. Our Coast Guard coxswain says he tried to rescue that dog a day earlier, but retreated when the dog bared its teeth.

¤ On Cherry – from downtown to 13th Avenue South, anyway – the wet-dry ratio remains about the same. The current is strong. In front of one home is a huge John Deere tractor pumping the basement. On our return trip an hour later, one wader-wearing man is videotaping another wader-wearing man carrying out his belongings.

¤ The scene changes at Belmont Road. The wet-dry ratio is 50-50 here. Ground levels need to be built at least five steps high to be without water. Amid the lake is an island – 918 Belmont Road. It has a ring dike only three sandbags high – no higher and mostly lower than the many other remnants of failed ring dikes we’ve seen. But for some reason, there’s only lawn and sidewalk to be seen inside the dike.

¤ Reeves Drive is another story. Almost every home has a foot of ground-level water. Some of the finer, more historic homes in the city have water up to the windows. The closer to the downtown, the deeper the water.

¤ Reaching Almonte Avenue is like reaching another world. We have to duck to avoid power lines overhead. Only the backboard and half of the net is visible from a basketball hoop. The water reaches to the eaves.

Some sandbags are still visible on the dike, showing we were capable of building it high enough, but were incapable of building it strong enough or defending the backed-up storm sewers and English Coulee at our back doors.

The current is so strong the media members unanimously vote not to go any farther to the east. So we have to view the Lincoln Drive area from a distance. We see at least a dozen homes knocked off their foundations, sickeningly tilted.

The Coast Guardsmen haven’t been to this part of Grand Forks before. They’ve worked other disasters and they’re still stunned by the sights. The boat is quiet a while.

¤ The quiet is broken by our coxswain, who shouts, ‘‘Look out, there’s a bump ahead.’’ We see the sign carrying the same message to brace ourselves, realize we’ve been had, and share a laugh. The mood has been broken.

¤ We head west to South Washington. There, it’s the same as it is west of Reeves – inches determining the fate of ground levels. Gerrells Sports Center has water inches from its front door, while neighboring Hockey World is swamped. Denny’s is wet, Dakota Vacuum next door is dry. Taco John’s drive-through is dry; its front door is wet.

¤ On the west side of Washington, the news is considerably better. Most of the homes don’t have water up against them, meaning their basements are dry unless they suffered from seepage or sewer backup. Perhaps only 20 percent have water scaling the foundation.

The tour has covered only about one-eighth of Grand Forks – the Central Park and Lincoln Park areas, to 13th Avenue to the south and 17th Street South to the west. While aerial views show a sea of water in Grand Forks, it’s not a deep sea everywhere. There’s hope for those wondering what they will see when they return to their homes. Most people say they can handle basement water; they were prepared for that.

While saddened by the destruction, I feel better than when I disembarked on the boat tour. Although horrible, it’s not as horrible as imagined. Pictures – on television and newspapers – deal with the most dramatic. Not everywhere is it as bad.

I feel better, that is, until I reach over the boat’s side to pluck a floating, white object from the murky water. I’ve seen dozens of these on our excursion and curiosity finally wins. I need to know what it is.

It’s an unfilled sand bag.