FLOOD VICTIMS RETURN TO DAMAGED HOMES.

Byline: The New York Times

Joan Glennen did not want to look.

She had already laid her daughters' waterlogged Barbies out to dry in the driveway sun, near the dripping sleeping bags and the fax machine that was beyond resuscitation. Sunday afternoon, she was facing another rubber-booted foray down into the foul stew of floating furniture and toys that is her basement to see whether the cedar chest holding the doilies her grandmother crocheted had survived.

``Guess I just have to face it,'' she said, arms tightly crossed across her chest as she grimly headed down those slimy stairs again.

As the waters of the Red River, which had turned this region into an inland sea nearly one-quarter the size of Lake Superior, receded further Sunday, thousands of residents allowed back into Grand Forks faced similar Hitchcock moments: Opening their front doors. Drawing a deep breath. Smelling an ominous mustiness. Looking down the stairs at water five, six, or seven feet deep where the rumpus room or the laundry corner used to be.

And as Grand Forks and its partner in tribulation on the Minnesota side of the Red River, East Grand Forks, began to assess the flood damage up close, their Canadian neighbors were bracing for their own fight with the river as it flowed north.

The Canadian authorities have ordered more than 17,000 people in the countryside near Winnipeg, Manitoba, to evacuate, as the city of 650,000 struggled to shore up its flood defenses before the river's expected crest there on May 5. A veteran of many floods, Winnipeg has a 29-mile, $2 billion floodway that diverts flood waters to the east of the city, but the river has been breaking all of its old records. Five people have already died in flood-related incidents.

Grand Forks counts itself lucky that it has lost no lives in what many are calling the worst natural disaster ever to hit the northern Midwest, with damage likely to total in the billions of dollars. But the mood is more stoic than optimistic as residents and officials face a monumental mess created by the flood waters. City officials warned Sunday that recovery would be a long, hard slog, that tap water was not likely to be safe for weeks and that some people might have to live in temporary housing for a year or more.

``Patience, patience, patience,'' said Lynn Stauss, mayor of East Grand Forks. ``Maybe that should be the name of our town until we get everyone back in - Patience.''

The flood was far from even-handed. Some areas of Grand Forks, which has a population of 50,000, were barely touched. Others were still underwater up to the rooftops.