A website that evolved from an NDSU course project is providing important information about the flooding in the Minot, N.D., area.
The site, “Mouse River Flood 2011,” allows anyone to report flood-related photos and observations. It came from work in the Comparative Programming Languages computer science course taught by Anne Denton, associate professor of computer science.
The site contains a map of the area, and regularly updated photographs contributed by the public for specific locations in the Minot community.
“It has clearly become ‘viral,’ and reports being added at an amazing rate,” Denton explained, noting the website was broadcast frequently on Minot’s KX News during its coverage of the flood.
Paul Loree, a computer science instructor at Minot State University and also a graduate student at NDSU, has taken the lead in adapting the site to Minot conditions. He said the site tries to make information sharing as quick and easy as possible.
“In the last 24 hours, we’ve had 248,458 hits with an average of 5,176 hits per hour with a maximum of 33,238 hits in an hour,” Loree said on June 27.
According to Loree, site visitors can look up an address for the area they want to see or they can create a marker for an address if they have information or a photo regarding that address.
“My family and most of my friends live in the valley and have lost their homes, but so far mine has been safe behind the secondary dike,” Loree said. “My hope is this website will reduce the feeling of many people not knowing what is happening around their homes in the flood area.”
The site, which also incudes links to North Dakota National Guard photos and videos, can be found at http://mouseriverflood2011.net/index.php.