Lake Region State College in Devils Lake is offering temporary housing to people who become displaced from their homes because of the continuing Devils Lake flood.
LRSC has 15 rooms available, according to Ramsey County Emergency Manager Kristen Nelsen.
She estimates almost a dozen Ramsey County families have been forced from their homes so far this spring.
"They lived with relatives or in motels and then found other places to live, with family or other houses," she said.
While she has received a couple of inquiries this week about the housing available at LRSC, no families had been placed there, as of Thursday.
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Devils Lake has risen by more than 30 feet and quadrupled in size since 1993. The combined acreage covered by Devils Lake and adjoining Stump Lake now is about 206,000 acres, an increase of almost 23,000 acres since the peak elevation of 1,452.1 feet in 2010. The lake was at about 1,454.1 feet Thursday.
Officials do not have an exact count of the number of families that have lost their homes to the flood over the years throughout the Devils Lake Basin.
However, some research by rural residents Julie Schemionek and Tammy Tollefson indicates that almost 50 homes have been moved or abandoned in the area west of the city of Devils Lake to Minnewaukan and Churchs Ferry, N.D., and north to the growing Lake Irvine, Lake Alice and Chain Lake areas.
Almost another 100 homes sit above an elevation of 1,460 feet but have lost access to their property.
People who need temporary housing assistance because of flooding in the Devils Lake Basin should contact Nelsen, the county emergency manager, at (701) 662-7001.
At an elevation of 1,458 feet, Devils Lake has a natural outlet through Stump Lake, to the Tolna Coulee and the Sheyenne River. The state and federal governments currently are designing an $8 million to $14 million project to build a control structure in the Tolna Coulee in an attempt to prevent a catastrophic spill from Stump Lake. The structure is expected to be completed by June 2012.
Meanwhile, Lake Region also is housing the North Dakota Department of Emergency Services Flood Response and Recovery Center in the LRSC gymnasium. The center is open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., seven days per week.
