Complex sentence: Thanks to a diversion canal completed near Horace, the major Sheyenne River cities fared well in the 1997 Red River Flood which devastated the cities of Grand Forks, North Dakota and East Grand Forks, Minnesota.
Split into simpler sentences: Thanks to a diversion canal completed near Horace, the major Sheyenne River cities fared well in the 1997 Red River Flood. By contrast, this flood devastated the cities of Grand Forks, North Dakota and East Grand Forks, Minnesota.