Nebraska's 2019 Flooding

MJ Author

03/24/2022 Added

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University of Nebraska-Lincoln journalism and mass communication students produced a film about the state's historic flooding.

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[00:00:03.410](rain pouring)
[00:00:05.630]Now to the major flood threat across the upper Midwest.
[00:00:08.080]Parts of the country's midsection
[00:00:09.350]slammed by days of catastrophic flooding.
[00:00:11.329]That's catastrophic and
[00:00:13.250]Miles and miles of devastation.
[00:00:15.290]55 years, I've never seen anything like this.
[00:00:17.470]Its from Nebraska into Iowa, also into Wisconsin.
[00:00:19.780]Parts of Nebraska, seeing the worst flooding in decades.
[00:00:22.927]A million calves gone in Nebraska.
[00:00:25.752]Historic river flooding from rapid snow melting ice jam.
[00:00:29.010]Flood water swallowed entire neighborhoods.
[00:00:31.400]Rescues and evacuations in the heartland.
[00:00:33.540]Brown churning water.
[00:00:34.690]Hundreds of millions of dollars
[00:00:36.934]Record breaking.
[00:00:38.510]I don't think that what has happened in Nebraska
[00:00:41.370]has gotten the kind of coverage that it should have.
[00:00:44.160]I think they're being left out.
[00:00:48.250]Nebraska, the heart of the Heartland.
[00:00:50.630]If you eat corn or beef,
[00:00:51.800]there's a good chance some of it
[00:00:52.860]has come from within our borders.
[00:00:54.460]We work off of the land,
[00:00:55.780]fighting the elements for each and every penny we make.
[00:00:58.070]We've been here for generations,
[00:00:59.500]passing the land down through families and
[00:01:01.300]adapting over the years to new technologies
[00:01:03.240]while still keeping the core of our way of life intact.
[00:01:06.710]Agriculture can be a gamble, and
[00:01:08.250]there are good years and bad
[00:01:09.540]but our roots are dug in deep and we stand strong
[00:01:11.940]in the face of anything that comes our way.
[00:01:15.860]Last March, Nebraska suffered devastating flooding
[00:01:18.350]on many of our rivers.
[00:01:19.780]The Western part of the state
[00:01:20.920]was hit with a terrible blizzard,
[00:01:22.310]and the east experienced torrential rain
[00:01:24.750]which fell on frozen ground
[00:01:26.300]and filled rivers that were already full of ice.
[00:01:28.830]Nearly the entire state was affected
[00:01:30.670]and the loss and damage of property was unimaginable.
[00:01:33.720]The story captured widespread media attention immediately
[00:01:36.630]after the flooding but
[00:01:37.770]soon, the camera crews packed up and left.
[00:01:40.200]Leaving Nebraskans to fend for themselves.
[00:01:42.750]Nebraskans are incredibly self-sufficient.
[00:01:45.120]We don't ask for help and we don't beg for attention.
[00:01:47.806]We do what has to be done, and we do our best to move on.
[00:01:51.840]But just because we don't ask for our stories to be told
[00:01:55.260]doesn't mean they're not worth telling.
[00:01:57.300]In response to the flooding,
[00:01:58.680]Nebraska Extension commissioned 50 students
[00:02:00.960]to do flood recovery work across the state.
[00:02:03.640]The college of journalism
[00:02:04.750]received the resources for
[00:02:05.940]eight students to travel the state
[00:02:07.380]and report on what happened.
[00:02:09.080]We formed Flood Feed Media,
[00:02:10.950]and we've been working all summer
[00:02:12.270]to show the incredible resilience
[00:02:13.790]of the people of Nebraska in the face of tragedy.
[00:02:16.420]And also to investigate the causes of the flooding
[00:02:18.620]and its long term effects.
[00:02:23.230]Wednesday morning, woke up.
[00:02:25.160]It was dry out,
[00:02:26.090]the kids went to school, just kind of a normal day.
[00:02:29.790]At about 10 o'clock it just started raining
[00:02:32.560]and raining and raining.
[00:02:33.860]It just was not stopping.
[00:02:35.850]This year, on March 13th, here comes the water.
[00:02:40.370]It was raining, the snow was melting,
[00:02:43.250]and then seven inches of rain
[00:02:45.090]and everything's coming but the ice came along.
[00:02:47.840]Thursday morning, I believe it was March 14th.
[00:02:51.230]It got very intense,
[00:02:52.870]I got a call about 6:00 AM from our city administrator
[00:02:55.910]who usually calls out earlier, never good news.
[00:02:58.988]You know which, we can handle a few inches of rain.
[00:03:02.070]However, the ground was completely frozen solid.
[00:03:04.370]There was nowhere for this rain to go.
[00:03:06.970]Friday night I believe,
[00:03:08.540]we were our own island.
[00:03:11.150]There was nobody going in Pierce,
[00:03:13.230]there was nobody going out of Pierce.
[00:03:15.230]Well at the time the cows were calving
[00:03:17.390]and what was happening was the
[00:03:19.465]day old calves, newborn calves,
[00:03:22.280]they're following the cows
[00:03:23.610]and they're going through about two to three feet of water.
[00:03:27.040]Those calves start drowning and
[00:03:29.160]we had cows that drowned.
[00:03:31.060]Then after that what happened was,
[00:03:32.960]maybe the calves were alive, but they got sick.
[00:03:36.930]Then, the cold weather came,
[00:03:38.380]snow came, and pneumonia, then
[00:03:41.010]we started losing more calves.
[00:03:42.350]It never happened before.
[00:03:43.760]It's Friday, Saturday and Sunday,
[00:03:45.741]they were starting to throw out words like imminent threat
[00:03:49.830]and historic flooding and got our attention.
[00:03:54.510]There's one moment I will never,
[00:03:56.350]ever forget as long as I live.
[00:03:57.980]We were over towards my parents'
[00:03:59.480]house on the east end of town.
[00:04:00.940]And the water was coming up so fast
[00:04:02.680]that we could see the slats
[00:04:04.450]on the siding were just disappearing
[00:04:06.410]because that's how fast the water was coming up.
[00:04:09.040]But then coming down to the river
[00:04:11.030]there was just so much ice,
[00:04:12.890]so much water, and no access to anything.
[00:04:16.590]As you've seen, the roads completely washed out,
[00:04:19.750]all of the fence is gone, cabin totaled.
[00:04:23.278]That's how this one went, and
[00:04:25.350]the sad part is we lost people too.
[00:04:27.580]It was kind of
[00:04:29.150]a perfect storm.
[00:04:30.160]The temperature was just right, the
[00:04:31.920]precipitation was just right.
[00:04:33.530]I mean just, everything lined up to be a disaster.
[00:04:39.660]Nebraska Extension and
[00:04:41.020]other groups have been an integral part
[00:04:42.870]of the recovery process.
[00:04:44.360]Coordinating volunteers and
[00:04:45.860]resources to help those who need it the most.
[00:04:48.840]It's brought Nebraska Extension to the forefront
[00:04:52.740]because we are located in all of those counties.
[00:04:57.220]We have the university front door, if you will
[00:05:01.660]in all of those 83 of those 93 counties.
[00:05:05.370]Our 4H office was flooded
[00:05:07.450]with 42 inches of water and
[00:05:10.010]much of our resources that we had
[00:05:12.350]on site were destroyed because of the weather.
[00:05:16.640]So we had about $20,000 worth of damage that we are working
[00:05:21.670]on to recover.
[00:05:22.820]An extension of anybody who was
[00:05:25.890]in the area of trying to keep up with our normal jobs.
[00:05:29.290]Plus adding the recovery efforts to it.
[00:05:32.456]You feel a little overwhelmed with it
[00:05:36.740]but you also know there's a lot of good that comes from it.
[00:05:41.300]Although Nebraska are strong and self-sufficient people,
[00:05:44.440]everyone needs a hand when responding to disaster.
[00:05:47.270]An army of volunteers has worked tirelessly
[00:05:49.710]across the state to help people get back on their feet.
[00:05:54.890]Everyone.
[00:05:55.723]They said, we're okay.
[00:05:57.850]We need to look after you and in the country one
[00:06:01.500]after another showed up and they made sure
[00:06:04.230]that we had something to drink, something to eat, clothes.
[00:06:07.630]We have had, I believe five
[00:06:10.181]hay convoys show up in town.
[00:06:12.780]People who had never heard of our town before,
[00:06:15.300]heard what had happened and just called or reached out to me
[00:06:18.050]on my Facebook page and said, what can we do to help?
[00:06:21.280]We have farmers who lost all of their hay supply.
[00:06:23.990]We have farmers who lost a lot of their cattle
[00:06:26.100]a lot of their calves,
[00:06:27.770]on top of losing a lot of their house and
[00:06:30.000]their barns and their machinery.
[00:06:31.774]For the farmers, I think was the first thing.
[00:06:34.950]Like we've got to feed our cows.
[00:06:36.220]If we can't feed cows, we've got nothing.
[00:06:39.030]My dad lived over 100
[00:06:40.798]and he always said, remember
[00:06:42.580]it doesn't last forever, but
[00:06:44.540]be ready to give back.
[00:06:46.790]If something's been given to you, give back and
[00:06:50.094]it's so amazing from all over the United States
[00:06:53.455]from around the world, they've come to save us.
[00:06:56.827]People need to know that we're all in this together.
[00:06:59.840]We've got the ability to help, reach out and
[00:07:02.570]share expertise, share help, and share support.
[00:07:06.050]It's okay to ask for help, 'cause guess what?
[00:07:08.100]Next time it's going to be me, you know?
[00:07:10.940]Next time it's going to be me.
[00:07:11.990]So we're all in this together and
[00:07:14.120]I think that's
[00:07:15.407]what makes Nebraska, Nebraska.
[00:07:18.350]We have got the most amazing people all the way around us.
[00:07:22.820]And yes, I've always been so proud of Nebraska.
[00:07:26.160]But then you go all over the country and say
[00:07:28.190]look what we have right at our fingertips.
[00:07:31.010]We have it.
[00:07:32.160]And our kids, I'm proud of them.
[00:07:35.070]I'm so proud of them.
[00:07:36.650]There's been some amazing things that have
[00:07:38.440]happened behind the scenes that
[00:07:39.690]people don't even realize or see.
[00:07:42.490]So it's definitely restored my faith in humanity.
[00:07:44.900]It makes me glad I live here.
[00:07:50.415](light music)

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Nebraska's 2019 Flooding

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