While Sen. Amy Klobuchar was in Moorhead over the weekend to deliver the commencement address at Concordia College, she checked on flood issues in the region.

And she told the Grand Forks Herald that Fargo/Moorhead needs a flood protection system like the one further north on the Red River protecting Grand Forks and East Grand Forks.

Budgets problems in Washington, and in the statehouses, will make it tough to do, though, she told the paper:

“But I think we have to do this,” she said. “When you look at the costs day in and day out” for temporary flood protection, “and when you look at Grand Forks,” the cost-benefit ratio tilts toward a long-term solution for Fargo-Moorhead.

And she told a story about observing flood efforts earlier this year in Fargo with North Dakota's U.S. Sen. John Hoeven, and everyone on the sandbagging crew seemed to know Hoeven. Finally someone recognized her, and shouted: "Amy, Amy." Turned out it was a man in an orange jumpsuit — a jail inmate on a work squad helping fill sandbags.

Hoeven thought it was hilarious, she said, and told everyone in the Senate about Klobuchar's orange-suited fan.