RISING ABOVE: Nebraska and Western Iowa's Historic 2019 Floods

RISING ABOVE N E B R A S K A A N D W E S T E R N I O WA’ S H I S TO R I C 2019 F L O O D S

RISING ABOVE

N E B R A S K A A N D W E S T E R N I O WA’ S H I S T O R I C 2019 F L O O D S

THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO THE MANY PEOPLE WHO PAUSED DURING A TIME OF STRESS, URGENCY AND ANGUISH TO SHARE THEIR STORY.

INTRODUCTION

4

THE SCRAMBLE

19

THE RESCUES

37

MAROONED

59

THE HELP FLOWED

71

DISRUPTED LIVES

91

O D D I T I E S 108 J U LY F L O O D I N G 114 T H E L I V E S L O S T 120 T H E A F T E R M AT H 123 O T H E R H I S T O R I C F L O O D S 136 COVER: 3.17.19 - Hamburg, IA - The sun sets on the Missouri River floodwaters. • RYAN SODERLIN TITLE PAGE: 3.13.19 - Fremont, NE- Standing water from melting snow and rain reflects the evening sky as a truck, in the distance, travels north on Highway 275. • RYAN SODERLIN LEFT: 4.3.19 - Yankton, SD - Water runs through the spillway at Gavins Point Dam. • RYAN SODERLIN BACK COVER, TOP LEFT: 5.2.19 - Rockville, NE Richard Panowicz holds some of the sand that covers his property along the Middle Loup River. • LORI POTTER BACK COVER, TOP RIGHT: 3.20.19 - Hamburg, IA - Treyton Gubser,

left, and his uncle Daniel Gubser paddle through the floodwaters after they rescued Daniel’s kid’s cat, Bob. • CHRIS MACHIAN BACK COVER, CENTER: 3.16.19 - Fremont, NE Volunteers race to stave off floodwater by sandbagging along Old U.S. Highway 275. • KENT SIEVERS BACK COVER, BOTTOM: 3.15.19 - Fremont, NE - A convoy of Hy-Vee trucks deliver needed supplies. • KENT SIEVERS Copyright 2020 Omaha World-Herald. All rights reserved.

First Edition ISBN: 978-1-7345923-1-3

A disaster that won’t soon be forgotten B Y E R I N D U F F Y A N D N A N C Y G A A R D E R | W O R L D - H E R A L D S TA F F W R I T E R S

T

HE EXPERTS HAD WARNED that major flooding was coming, yet the local emergency management and safety personnel who huddled in Norfolk, Nebraska, in mid-March 2019 weren’t sure if the dire predictions would actually pan out.

They studied the weather forecasts, looked at river crest predictions, understood that rain might not soak into the frozen ground. They pulled records and talked to old-timers about the flood of 1971, when the North Fork of the Elkhorn River hit a high mark of 15.1 feet in Pierce.

This time, National Weather Service meteorologists warned that the river crest could swell 2 feet higher.

But when they checked area fields for runoff from melting snow and rain, they saw nothing dramatic.

Was the storm actually going to be that bad?

River at Louisville, the Elkhorn River at Waterloo, the Missouri River at Brownville and more.

After surveying the Platte, Loup and Elkhorn rivers by helicopter with the Nebraska National Guard the morning of March 15, Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts characterized the extensive flooding as the worst in 50 years.

In the weeks and months that followed, it became clear that it was worse than even that — likely the worst flood in the state’s modern history. Towns and cities in 29 Nebraska counties evacuated, plus more in low-lying areas in Iowa near the Missouri River, like Pacific Junction and Hamburg.

Few could begin to fathom what would soon happen in Norfolk and across much of eastern Nebraska and western Iowa. “It was just kind of a nice spring rain, to be honest with you,” said Shane Weidner, the Norfolk public safety director. “We looked at each other … and said, ‘We can’t imagine this all being underwater in a day or two.’ ” Over the next several days, from Wednesday, March 13, through the weekend, the warnings of historic flooding became all too real. Flood records on seven river systems in Nebraska were broken, a testament to how widespread the damage was and the domino effect of runoff flushing downstream.

Water and mattress-sized chunks of ice caused the Spencer Dam to collapse. The Verdigre Creek in northeast Nebraska hit a record flood stage. So did the Loup River near Genoa, the Wood River at Gibbon, the Platte 4 INTRODUCTION

3.15.19 - Norfolk, NE - Gov. Pete Ricketts arrives at the Norfolk airport for a press conference. • RYAN SODERLIN RIGHT:

3.15.19 - Arlington, NE - An aerial view of floodwaters flowing over a railroad bridge. • CHRIS MACHIAN

Levees were shredded

Western Nebraska wasn’t spared, either: A blizzard hit right in the middle of calving season. Eighty-one of 93 Nebraska counties and five tribal areas issued disaster declarations, plus 56 in Iowa. Rains would prove unrelenting through the summer and the damage would continue. By year’s end, 84 Nebraska counties would be eligible for disaster aid.

B Y N A N C Y G A A R D E R | W O R L D - H E R A L D S TA F F W R I T E R

Levee

Rivers reached record heights in mid-March 2019, washing over the tops of levees and destroying a network that took decades to build.

WHAT IS A LEVEE? A levee is a berm of compacted earth that protects property from a flooding river. Levees are only as good as their maintenance, which must include protecting faces from erosion and keeping them free from trees and animal burrows that can serve as an entry point for water. Levees are both publicly and privately maintained. In 2019 hundreds of miles of public and private levees were damaged in Nebraska and Iowa.

There is now talk of creating an inventory of private levees and developing a cost-sharing program to help rebuild levees on private property.

River

GRAPHIC BY MATT HANEY

LEVEES: BY THE NUMBERS

350 miles

Length of federally-funded levee system damaged in Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas and Missouri.

$1.1 billion Estimated cost of repairing federallyfunded levees.

1,700 feet Length of longest breach.

10 feet

6.20.19 - Percival, IA - The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Omaha District completes an initial breach closure on levee 575.

• ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS

6 INTRODUCTION

Height of some sand/ dirt dunes left after flooding broke through levees.

60 feet

Deepest hole dug by floodwaters as Missouri River poured over a levee and down its backside.

49

Number of breaches in federally-funded levees in Nebraska, Iowa and northwest Missouri, 10 times more than the 2011 flood.

Unknown

Miles of damage and cost of repairs to private levees.

Source: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers

The mix of heavy snowmelt and record spring rains triggered one of the costliest inland floods ever experienced in the United States, according to a report from the National Centers for Environmental Information, a division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The storm caused an estimated $10 billion in damages across eight states, with more than 40% of that damage occurring in Nebraska and Iowa. Most heavily hit was Nebraska, where an estimated $2.7 billion in damage is estimated to have occurred.

The full cost will never be known, and it’s expected that the numbers will rise as losses continue to pile up.

Then there was the human toll. During flooding in March and July, six Nebraskans died, including one in Iowa.

At the peak of the disaster, more than 3,300 miles of Nebraska roads were closed, cutting off cities including Norfolk, Fremont, Columbus and Valley. Damage to water pipes and plants in Lincoln, Santee, Peru, Plattsmouth and Boyd County in Nebraska, and Glenwood, Iowa, required residents to ration water, sometimes for months. The Army Corps of Engineers counted 49 breaches of its levees, 10 times more than the historic 2011 flood that overwhelmed levees along the Missouri River. An untold number of local levees broke, leaving the flood protection system along the Missouri River resembling Swiss cheese. The federal agency faced fresh anger from residents over its flood management.

Schools canceled classes, some for more than a week, and their buildings were turned into community centers where residents could shower and gulp down a meal.

And once the waters receded, locals were left to clean up mud-caked houses, some accessible only by canoe; dispose of drowned cattle and pigs; and circumnavigate roads torn up by water, sand and ice.

3.17.19 - Hamburg, IA - People fill sandbags and build a water retaining wall as they defend the town from Missouri River floodwaters. • RYAN SODERLIN

INTRODUCTION

7

NEBRASKA AND WESTERN IOWA AREAS HEAVILY IMPACTED BY THE 2019 FLOODS Spencer Dam

N IO B R

Gavins Point Dam Lynch

ARA R IV E R

Verdel

Santee Niobrara Verdigre

MI SSO

Pierce

RIVER

Norfolk

IVE IR

ORN

UR

ELKH

R

I O WA

St. Edward

Genoa Fullerton Loup City

Dannebrog Rockville

RIVE LO U P

Silver Creek

R

IV ER

E80R

IVE ER

P

T L AT

Winslow

North Bend Fremont Linwood

VE R PL AT TE RI

B LU

Eustis

Gibbon Kearney

Schuyler

Missouri Valley

Arlington Valley

Elkhorn Gretna Omaha Bellevue Offutt AFB Glenwood Ashland Pacific Junction Louisville Plattsmouth Waterloo

BIG

Grand Island Lexington

Columbus

Lincoln

R

Crete

Nebraska City

Hamburg Peru

Brownville

Haunting images emerged: Houses swallowed, only their rooftops visible. Entire bridge spans washed out and floating downstream like pieces of a child’s Lego set.

The runway at Offutt Air Force Base submerged — with another third of the base underwater — by a surging Missouri River. The skeletal remains of the Spencer Dam. Amid the ruin, acts of bravery and kindness inspired hope and symbolized the strength and resiliency of Nebraskans. People of all ages and backgrounds banded together in Plattsmouth and Fremont to sandbag businesses and homes. Firefighters, police and Nebraska National Guard crews pulled off treacherous rescues by airboat, helicopter and highwater vehicle. Strangers washed clothes for those who were displaced or without running water.

Big-hearted people from around the country flocked Rulo to the heartland to help out. Millions of dollars in donations poured in to buy hay for hungry cattle, send clean water to communities and provide a little comfort and security to those who lost their homes and nearly all their possessions.

There was fear and chaos. There was heartbreak.

There were promises to rebuild. The damage will continue to reverberate in the years ahead as people struggle, sometimes against the odds, to recover from the losses to their homes, businesses or farmland.

The flood proved how fragile our lives and society can be in the face of nature. These are the stories of a disaster that won’t soon be forgotten.

LEFT: 3.22.19 - Bellevue, NE - An angel statue appears to overlook the lake as residents of the Betty, Chris and Hanson’s Lake areas were allowed to check on their property after the water levels of both the Platte and Missouri rivers had fallen. • KENT SIEVERS

INTRODUCTION

9

THE SCRAMBLE Many were caught off-guard by the sheer force of the March 2019 storm. Streets were underwater within hours. Many residents in flood zones were given 20 minutes to grab a bag and get out.

Left and above: 3.15.19 - A truck drives through a flooded road near the Platte River and Venice, Nebraska while a house is surrounded by floodwaters near Waterloo, Nebraska. • CHRIS MACHIAN

19

Spencer Dam collapse may be first in nation caused by giant ice chunks, inspector says B Y PA U L H A M M E L | W O R L D - H E R A L D B U R E A U

T

HE STATE’S TOP dam safety official says that huge chunks of ice — some weighing as much as a fullsized pickup — played a leading role in the March 14, 2019, collapse of northern Nebraska’s Spencer Dam. Tim Gokie, chief engineer of the state’s dam safety program, said it may be the first dam failure in the nation related to ice floes. That ice, carried by epic floodwaters, most likely caused the 92-year-old concrete-and-earthen dam to wash out.

“With age comes problems with any infrastructure — steel corrodes, concrete deteriorates over time,” Gokie said. “But there’s no indication that any of that led to the failure of the dam.”

The collapse of the 29-foot-high dam on the Niobrara River unleashed a wall of water 11 to 15 feet in height, washing away a home, several trailers and a unique straw-bale saloon/bait shop just below it. The body of Kenny Angel, who lived in the home, was not immediately found. *** The phone rang at Paul Allen’s ranch house along the Niobrara River at 6 a.m. that March 14. It wasn’t good news. Five miles upstream, the Spencer Dam had “been compromised,” and a wall of water was heading his way.

Just below the dam, a tavern, a bait shop, a half-dozen campers and a home were washed away.

“It looks like there was never anything there,” said Allen.

A quarter-mile section of U.S. 281 was washed out just south of the bridge over the Niobrara River. At the Allen ranch, floodwaters 4 to 5 feet deep inundated pastures and livestock pens, he said, tipping over stock trailers, flowing into farm sheds and tractors, and scattering cattle.

“It’s not good. We don’t have no clue how many cows we lost yet, or equipment or machinery,” Allen said, adding that he’d seen water come within a foot of the river’s banks but never seen it flood.

3.17.19 - Niobrara, NE - Huge ice chunks pepper fields.

• PAUL HAMMEL

RIGHT: 3.22.19 - The remains of Spencer Dam. • GOV. PETE RICKETTS’ OFFICE

20

THE SCRAMBLE

Nearly a month later, the area around Spencer Dam was a virtual wasteland of sand and debris. The skeleton of the concrete portion of the 3,700-foot-long structure, along with the vast fields of sand, had become one of the iconic images of the 2019 flooding.

On the night of March 13-14, 2019, an epic amount of water and ice had built up behind the dam. Flows in the Niobrara River just below the dam measured up to 40,000 cubic feet per second, which was about 27 times the normal flow, just before the dam failed, according to Jason Lambrecht of the U.S. Geological Survey in Lincoln.

Ice on the river measured 18 to 24 inches thick before the collapse, which came amid a local blizzard followed by more than 2 inches of rain. Lambrecht said that based on the size of the ice chunks found after the collapse, some weighed as much as 3 tons.

“When you add that ice in the mix, it can be really destructive,” he said.

Nebraska Public Power District officials have said their workers abandoned the dam after unsuccessfully trying to open more floodgates and noticing that water was beginning to overtop the earthen portion of the structure.

The workers, they said, immediately drove to Angel’s house, told him to “get out now” and then drove away.

In the aftermath, the grim search for Angel continued, with helicopters and drones flying up and down the Niobrara, which still had large fields of ice chunks and debris along the banks. At ranches along the river, preparations were made to bury dead cattle. And at the road-closed signs blocking access to the washedout highway below the Spencer Dam, small groups of sightseers gazed up at the old structure and the sandy moonscape where Angel’s Straw-Bale Saloon and Kenny Angel’s home once stood. Many shook their heads. The only sign that a popular gathering spot once stood there was a flagpole, planted by Angel’s family, flying the American and Nebraska flags.

THE RESCUE As the floodwaters encircled homes, rescuers used airboats, helicopters and high-water vehicles to pull hundreds of people and their animals to safety.

Left: 7.10.19 - Gibbon, NE - A Nebraska Game and Parks airboat removes a family from a flooded house. Gibbon was affected by both the March and July 2019 floods. • JEFF BUNDY Above: Soldiers with the Nebraska Army National Guard extract and relocate those stranded near Columbus, Nebraska, by the historic flooding. • SPC. LISA CRAWFORD

37

‘The water came up pretty fast’: Extent of damage from widespread flooding starts to emerge B Y E R I N D U F F Y, A L I A C O N L E Y, S U S A N S Z A L E W S K I , K E L S E Y S T E WA R T, R O S E A N N M O R I N G , N A N C Y G A A R D E R , M A R T H A S T O D D A R D, C H R I S P E T E R S , R I C K R U G G L E S , B L A K E U R S C H A N D E R I N G R A C E | W O R L D - H E R A L D S TA F F W R I T E R S

S

OLDIERS ON THREE Nebraska National Guard helicopters rescued 37 people and seven pets in one night alone on March 14, 2019. In other places, first responders were using airboats, eightwheelers and light-armored vehicles to evacuate residents who often had time to grab only vital documents and a few treasured family photos.

“I think part of what happens for many of us is we say, ‘How bad can it really be?’ And then if we wait too long and don’t take the opportunity to leave, we find ourselves trapped and isolated,” said Maj. Gen. Daryl Bohac, the adjutant general for the Nebraska National Guard.

“These are complex operations,” he said. “We’re putting a soldier on a hoist and dropping them into the area, often made more complex by trees and utility wires.

These are dangerous things that are happening, but we are able to help.” *** Hugging his dog in the King Lake area outside Valley, C.J. Cunningham recounted wading through waist-deep water to grab a lockbox of documents, a sleeping bag and a clothes basket with an open box of Milk-Bone dog treats.

“We needed to get the heck out of there,” Cunningham said about the decision to request a rescue. Cunningham said he hoped the family didn’t lose everything. But it sure looked that way.

“I’m a carpenter,” he said. “All my tools are soaking wet.

All my saws and everything. The water came up pretty fast. We were trying to protect the stuff we could.

The cars and trucks are gone, lawnmowers, everything.”

44

THE RESCUE

3.15.19 - Water covers a road near Valley, Nebraska, March 15, 2019. • CHRIS MACHIAN FACING PAGE: 3.15.19 - C.J. Cunningham with his German shorthair, Cazz, after they were rescued from the King Lake area near Valley.

• KENT SIEVERS

MAROONED With roads and bridges heavily damaged, residents across the state were forced to adapt to longer routes or simply stay put as some travel routes were inaccessable.

Left: 3.15.19 - Pickups, overalls and water on Highway 30 between Fremont and Arlington, Nebraska. • KENT SIEVERS Above: 3.18.19 - Bellwood, NE - Helmut Shea Kaukver III of Schuyler looks on from a boat alongside Tim Rockford.

It’s the only way to get to Rockford’s home after the flooding in the Bellwood Lakes neighborhood. • BRENDAN SULLIVAN

59

With the roads in and out of Fremont flooded, town is ‘kind of an island’ B Y E R I N G R A C E | W O R L D - H E R A L D S TA F F W R I T E R

Y

OU CAN GET STUCK in a flood. Stuck in your house. Stuck in your car. Stuck in town.

That reality hit home here as Fremont residents and visitors alike became stranded March 15, 2019.

In every direction, roads out of town were blocked by floodwaters. Fremont, a city of 26,000, was surrounded.

“We’re trapped,” Fremont City Administrator Brian Newton said.

“Kind of an island,” said Jeremy Dillon, watching from the new island’s shore as water lapped across

U.S. Highway 30. He stared east, as if to see his home a couple of miles down the road from which he escaped after the water rose “so fast.”

Dillon and others could have done a whole lot worse than to be stranded in Fremont. The city itself was mostly dry, and business went on mostly as usual, although the Starbucks closed early with a handwritten sign in the window: “Due to evacuation.”

Hotels sold out early. The clerks at the busy Holiday Inn Express tried admirably to help the stranded. They sounded like social workers on the phone as they tried to help families with special needs who could not bed down at a church shelter.

Meanwhile, at least 180 people signed into an American Red Cross shelter at First Lutheran Church, where dozens of yellow-vested volunteers were busily making room for more. It was one of several shelters in Fremont.

On Thursday night, the church served 20 people. After the city became an island on Friday, the numbers grew.

The church had planned for 100 but was going to find as much floor space as possible.

3.16.19 - Fremont, NE- Washed out County Road 18 at U.S. Highway 30. • KENT SIEVERS FACING PAGE:

3.15.19 - Fremont, NE - Looking back at the floodwater below the Broad Street viaduct. • KENT SIEVERS

60 MAROONED

The pastor, the Rev. Marty Tollefson, said the congregation had prepared for something like this with several years of American Red Cross training. But glancing into an already crowded gym, he took a deep breath. People were unfolding cots, inches apart. “You prepare, and yet when it comes, it’s a different ballgame,” he said.

Outside, throngs of people walked up the city’s closed, eerily empty viaduct to see the swamped street on the other side.

The road emptied into what might as well have been a lake. The only vehicles that dared enter into the waters either had huge wheels or were boats. A child in rubber boots played in the water as onlookers held up their phones, marveling at the surreal scene.

The stuck included Nate Ingebritson, who had planned to bring his 6-year-old daughter, Abby, in Fremont on spring break, back to her mother at a meetup in Oklahoma. “That’s not going to happen,” Ingebritson said as he held Abby.

And the stuck included the four-legged variety, specifically Sundance the painted horse with arthritis.

Owner Faye Etherington lives on a dry side of Fremont.

Sundance is boarded south of town. When Faye heard that the waters were rising and that Sundance and other horses were standing in frigid, knee-deep water, she and relatives sprung to action.

They lucked into someone with a vehicle with tires big enough to drive through the swamped street. Volunteers rode or led Sundance and several other horses on the 2-mile journey into town. Onlookers and first responders eagerly captured Faye’s reunion with Sundance on their phones.

Photographer Kent Sievers and I could not leave Fremont after a day’s work. But we did have spots saved on two couches in the home of virtual strangers, a Fremont couple who offered to order us a pizza and cook us breakfast.

Most importantly, we each knew that we had warm, dry homes to return to. Unlike some of those in Fremont and throughout flooded Nebraska, we weren’t very stuck at all.

THE HELP FLOWED Big-hearted people filled sandbags, repaired homes and gave millions of dollars in donations to provide hay for hungry cattle, send clean water to communities and provide comfort and support to those who lost homes.

3.16.19 - Fremont, NE - Volunteers race to stave off floodwater by sandbagging along Old U.S. Highway 275 between Morningside Road and Downing Street. Above, Will DeLay takes part in the sand bagging effort at Arps Red-E-Mix in Fremont. • KENT SIEVERS

71

‘We’re the ones who are blessed’: Volunteers rush to get flood victims back in houses before winter B Y E R I N D U F F Y | W O R L D - H E R A L D S TA F F W R I T E R

T

HE CRISP DAYS, COOL, cozy nights and changing leaves were welcome signs that fall had arrived, but they were also blaring a warning to the residents and volunteers trying to restore the floodwrecked community of King Lake. Winter is coming.

Homeowners and helpers were racing against the clock to repair flood-damaged houses in the King Lake area before the weather turned. A number of residents there had been living in RVs parked in yards in the seven months since the flooding ruined their houses.

Help was dwindling too — so many months removed from the initial disaster, groups said they were no longer seeing as many volunteers come out on weekends to install drywall or flooring.

“It’s cold now,” said Cyndi Borden, the director of King’s Garden, a nonprofit ministry that runs out of King Lake.

“Our hope is to have everyone sitting at their table for Thanksgiving.”

So faith-based volunteer groups like King’s Garden and Omaha Rapid Response were making a last push to get houses livable — if not quite to their preflood condition — before winter and the holidays.

Their goal was to get as many residents as they could back into houses with a working bathroom, kitchen and bedroom. Paint, carpet, appliances and finishing touches may have to come later.

One October Saturday, saws whirred and the sound of hammering rang out as four volunteers, three from Bethany Lutheran Church in Elkhorn, cut and laid subflooring inside a white one-story home. The house had been gutted down to the studs and a ceiling fan lay in a 84

THE HELP FLOWED

10.19.19 - Valley, NE - Terry Rocz, left, and Rick Braasch of Bethany Lutheran Church volunteer with faith-based group Omaha Rapid Response to restore flood-damaged homes. • BRENDAN SULLIVAN

bathtub, but the medicine cabinet was still stocked with Pepto-Bismol and other odds-and-ends of preflood life.

“I need two of those and then a two-by-four,” Ron Bahn instructed Rick Braasch as they fit together boards and support beams. “Just like a jigsaw puzzle.”

King Lake is an unincorporated area in western Douglas County. It’s a secluded neighborhood of one square mile that sits right next to the Elkhorn River, east of Valley and

north of Waterloo. During the historic flooding, the Elkhorn spilled out of its banks, sending water into nearly all of the 111 homes in King Lake. At Waterloo, the river reached startling new heights, cresting 5.65 feet higher than the previous record, set in 1962. Some homes had 2 to 6 feet of water and mud inside. Foundations buckled. Houses that suffered significant damage may have to be elevated several feet higher to bring them out of the flood plain.

DISRUPTED LIVES The lingering effects of record flooding were being felt weeks and months afterward. Sand left by floodwaters halted spring planting and ranchers tallied lost livestock. Throughout the state businesses worked to restore buildings and lure back customers.

Left: 5.21.19 - Louisville, NE - Robert Jones looks around his flood damaged house north of Highway 50.

The floor, normally a white tile, was covered in mud. • CHRIS MACHIAN Above: 3.24.19 - Valley, NE - Shelly Moline of Omaha stacks trash onto a pile at the Valley city park. Moline had been helping clean up flooded homes in King Lake and was in Valley dumping a trailer load of trash. • RYAN SODERLIN

91

O D D I T I ES

‘Mountain of sand’ after floods, adding pains to planting season B Y M A R J I E D U C E Y | W O R L D - H E R A L D S TA F F W R I T E R

T

ONS OF SAND, sediment and silt — some in dunes as high as 10 feet — were scattered across the eastern half to two-thirds of Nebraska by the March 2019 flooding. In some areas, washed-out cornstalks were 3 to 4 feet deep. Tree limbs were in piles and topsoil was washed away.

“We have a mountain of sand piled up,” Valley farmer Ryan Ueberrhein said in April 2019.

Sediment from Nebraska’s rivers and streams has been deposited on nearby flooded land for millions of years. Farmers, U.S. Department of Agriculture officials, University of Nebraska-Lincoln Extension specialists and extension educators now were left trying to figure out what to do with it. They were racing against the clock because farmers needed to plant and ranchers needed grass pastures to graze their cattle. Eight inches or less of the sand-sediment mix can usually be tilled into the soil with the right equipment, extension educator John

5.1.19 - Valley, NE - Ryan Ueberrhein holds a handful of sand as he stands on a pile of it that once covered his field. The sand, which he is having hauled away, was dumped there by floodwaters.

• RYAN SODERLIN

108 ODDITIES

Wilson said. But for others with much larger amounts, it may require removing sand and stockpiling it along the edge or in the corners of fields. In extreme cases, it might be too costly to do anything but leave it.

“If you have 3 to 5 feet of sand, that might be the new normal,” said Brad Schick, an extension educator based in Nance County.

That’s where people like Daren Redfearn came in.

He’s an extension forage specialist at UNL, and he and his co-workers were looking into what could be planted

to stabilize the massive amounts of sand that couldn’t be moved.

Ueberrhein, who farms about 2,000 acres with his dad, brother and a neighbor, said 5 to 10 acres on one 80-acre piece of his land was covered in sand 2 to 4 feet deep. He hired Barger Grading of Bennington to bulldoze the sand into piles and remove it. “I tell you, it’s building some character,” he said. “You get stressed out. You just have to take a step back and breathe. You can’t control Mother Nature. This is what it is, and you have to fight it head on. That’s what we are doing.”

THE AFTERMATH The damage will continue to reverberate in the years ahead as people struggle to recover from losses to their homes, business and farmland. Questions linger.

Should we rebuild? What are future flood risks?

And how prepared are we? Only time will tell.

Left: 4.19.19 - Pacific Junction, IA - Tanks toppled by floodwaters. • CHRIS MACHIAN Above: 8.15.19 - Bellevue, NE - Debris rests on the street as weeds grow around former homes at Paradise Lakes. • REECE RISTAU

123

To rebuild or not?

B Y E R I N D U F F Y A N D R E E C E R I S TA U | W O R L D - H E R A L D S TA F F W R I T E R S

Pacific Junction, Iowa Affected residents in western Iowa who didn’t want to or couldn’t fix up their damaged homes began the long process of seeking federally funded property buyouts. Mills County and Pacific Junction received a combined $5.49 million from an Iowa flood recovery fund to cover the local costs of acquiring and demolishing flood-damaged properties.

3.18.19 - Glenwood, IA - Amelia Fritz, right, holds on to her daughter-in-law Tesha Fritz. They were evacuated from Pacific Junction, Iowa, after floodwaters hit the town. • CHRIS MACHIAN FACING PAGE:

4.19.19 - Pacific Junction, IA Firefighter Brad Oliver pushes mud out of the fire station.

• CHRIS MACHIAN

By October 2019, 70 households in unincorporated areas of Mills County and 147 households in Pacific Junction indicated interest in a buyout. All buyouts would be voluntary. Those numbers can and will change, state and local officials said at a meeting in Glenwood, Iowa in October attended by roughly 100 people. More people may raise their hand for a buyout. Others may change their minds, deciding to stick it out and repair their homes.

At another meeting in May, Pacific Junction resident Linda Harmon was interested in a buyout. A Federal Emergency Management

Agency agent told her that it could cost $183,000 to rebuild her home. Its assessed value is only about $113,000. “I just want to go home, and I can’t,” she said. FEMA will ultimately decide which buyout applications get funded.

Appraising, buying and tearing down homes could cost upward of $15 million in unincorporated Mills County and nearly $22 million in Pacific Junction. Those costs will also vary depending on how many people opt for a buyout and how much their homes are appraised for.

Residents are supposed to receive the preflood value of their home.

Commercial properties and agricultural land affected by flooding may be eligible for buyout money, too, but residential properties typically take precedence, Brown said.

Under the best-case scenario, FEMA would pick up 75% of those costs through its Hazard Mitigation Assistance program. Local governments are expected to kick in 15% and the state is on the hook for 10%.

The state flood funds are expected to cover the local match that Mills County and Pacific Junction officials said they could not afford to pay.

If properties are deemed eligible and receive FEMA approval, they would be demolished and permanently designated as green space, meaning nothing could be built there in the future. The goal is to remove vulnerable properties from the flood plain to prevent repeated flooding and payouts for flood damage.

It’s hard to pin down exactly how long that process will take, Brown said. Mills County officials have said it could take two years. Victims of other hurricanes and natural disasters sometimes wait years.

Some communities don’t relish the idea of buyouts, either, which would hurt the population and tax base in a town like Pacific Junction, where about 500 people lived before the flood hit.

By October 2019, only about five households were back in their homes in Pacific Junction, though more were renovating and repairing homes that took on several feet of water. “I know it’s tough to hold on” while waiting for a potential buyout, said Terry Brown, a mitigation specialist with Iowa Homeland Security and Emergency Management.

124

THE AFTERMATH

4.1.19 - The hands of a farmer affected by floods. • SPC. LISA CRAWFORD

Nebraska Preparedness Partnership Building readiness through partnership

144

A portion of the book sales will support the Nebraska Preparedness Partnership (NPP) NPP is a 501 (c)(3) established in 2014 for the purpose of engaging Nebraska businesses, critical infrastructure, key resources and citizens.

NPP builds the readiness of private stakeholders in Nebraska to prepare, mitigate, respond and recover from disasters through advocacy, training and public partnerships.

In 2019, Nebraska and Iowa endured one of the costliest inland floods ever experienced in the United States. Billions of dollars in damage, thousands of homes destroyed, roads closed, levees breached, livestock gone and lives lost.

But amid the enormous loss came acts of bravery and kindness that inspired hope and symbolized the strength and resiliency of the heartland.

The Omaha World-Herald and its news partners were there documenting this record-breaking catastrophe every step of the way.

Rising Above tells the stories of a disaster that won’t soon be forgotten.

$24.95 ISBN 978-1-7345923-1-3

52495>

9 781734 592313 $24.95

| OWHSTORE.COM

A portion of the book sales will support the Nebraska Preparedness Partnership.

Nebraska Preparedness Partnership

Building readiness through partnership