Muddy Mess

HARTINGTON — What many hope was the final winter storm of the season last Thursday did not help a county that is still hurting from and learning the total impact of last month’s flooding.

Cedar County still had approximately 20 miles worth of roads closed before the most recent storm hit, but a wintery mix of rain, sleet, and snow caused County officials to announce a temporary closing of all county dirt roads from Thursday into the weekend.

That has since been lifted, but officials say the storm was the exact opposite of the dry weather conditions that are direly needed right now.

“Extremely terrible timing,” said Cedar County Highway Superintendent Carla Schmidt. “We have the regular frost coming out of the ground that causes trouble every year whether we had the flood or not, but now we have the frost compounding some of the damage from the flood and now we got snow on top of that. We need dry weather.”

Schmidt was in a meeting on Friday with Cedar County District 1 Commissioner Dave McGregor and Cedar County Emergency Management Director Kevin Garvin, as the group continues to put together the damage report from last month’s flood to send to FEMA.

“The state of Nebraska convinced FEMA to give them a 30-day extension to give them everything,” said Garvin. “They announced that earlier in the week that FEMA granted the extension just due to the magnitude of the event.”

The extension does not allow any additional documented damage from this most recent storm, though. The damage report going to FEMA concerns damage strictly from last month’s flood and does not include additional expenses like damage that will be caused to roads that are now being used as alternate routes, nor does it cover any preventative work that could be done to try and limit any damage from a future flood.

“FEMA will only reimburse you to replace it back to the way it was,” said Schmidt. “They are saying it was a one-in-500-year flood, so does it make sense to pay all of the money to build it up to a 1,000-year flood level?”

McGregor built off Schmidt’s statement, relating to a flood that occurred in Cedar County in the 1970s that happened around February or March.

“So my understanding from that time is that a lot of the bridges were built up,” said McGregor. “We lost bridges at that time so they built those bridges up higher and left the road down here. The idea was to save the bridge but let the road go. Obviously, a bridge could not handle this volume of water, but a lot of our approaches, with the exception of one, we have been able to salvage.”

Schmidt and McGregor agreed there are approximately 10 bridges that are closed because of road conditions leading up to those bridges.

The Cedar County Roads Department has begun work on roads that need attention.

“We have opened the St. Helena Bottom Road along with some other stretches of roads, but we have opened then had to re-close some others,” said Schmidt. “We haven’t gained a whole lot.”

There are a few problems that have arose though.

“We are still finding spots where the frost is coming out, and we are still finding culverts that were undermined,” said McGregor. “They are showing up more and more that water had run underneath it and caused it to cave in. We found another one on Thursday and we have fixed numerous ones, but it is still showing up.”

Then there is the issue of finding materials like dirt and gravel.

McGregor noted that one of the places the county typically gets dirt from still has frost 18 inches down in the ground.

Finding dry dirt has also become a near impossible task, he said. The need for these materials is high though for a large number of counties, so reserves from last year have dwindled quickly.

“One of the places in Iowa that we usually go to get gravel they aren’t even producing yet, so we are limited,” said Schmidt. “We are finding it.”

“But most of those places don’t even start up until the end of May,” continued McGregor. “They usually don’t start mining until that time.”

So on Friday, McGregor, Schmidt, and Garvin were compiling lists of projects, attaching photos taken shortly after the flood to locations where these projects are as proof of the damage, and then estimating the cost of materials. Those costs for materials can vary greatly from what it will actually cost though since it is unknown where to source these materials. Travel to sites for materials that are farther than normal could bring additional costs that aren’t necessarily factored into these estimates.

A lot of what was being done on Friday was using latitude and longitude coordinates on the photos to place them on Google Maps to show where these projects are. Garvin says this evidence is probably most important to show to FEMA.

“These photos are very valuable because we have to prove to FEMA, in order to get assistance, what was caused by the flood,” said Garvin. “So, if it was caused by the frost or traffic FEMA doesn’t cover it. So these photos taken right after the flood are going to be very instrumental in proving what’s what.”

Garvin continued by saying public assistance has been approved by FEMA to Cedar County and a majority of the counties in need, but individual assistance is still being clarified. There were 12 additional counties added to the Individual Disaster Assistance list. There are now 27 counties on this list, along with the Santee Indian Reservation.

Cedar County is not listed, but neighboring/nearby counties Knox, Dodge, Madison, and Pierce are listed.

Garvin said he does not expect Cedar County to be added to this list.

“I have no information to suggest that Cedar County would be added to that list. Simply we don’t have any reports of people meeting that threshold that FEMA is looking for.”

Garvin then stated the requirements by FEMA.

“For water damage to a house it has to be at least 16 inches of standing water of the first floor of a primary residence,” said Garvin. “So if it fills the basement, FEMA doesn’t take that into account.”

McGregor did ask Garvin about those with finished basements that include hospitable quarters, but Garvin said it must be the first floor of a primary residence.

It is still a long haul for roads to be fixed, and patience is still asked of county residents. McGregor, Schmidt, and Garvin did want to thank the public for their patience and help since the flood, though.

“I have to say the public has been extremely helpful,” said McGregor. “They have been vigilant and found things and let us know saying something like ‘hey can you place a flag here I just saw the road caving off,’ so the public I cannot thank enough for what they have done. They have helped immensely.”

To read more please log in or subscribe to the digital edition https://etypeservices.com/Northeast%20Nebraska%20News%20CompanyID379/