Snow, ice add to flood worries

The combination of falling snow, ice jams and continued melting snow raised flooding concerns across eastern Nebraska and western Iowa today.

Jeff Reese, hydrologist at the National Weather Service, called the ice situation “our biggest nemesis right now.”

Weather that's forecast for the next couple of days also raises concerns, he said.

“After this band goes through . . . we're looking at generally light precipitation through the weekend. So it shouldn't have that much of an effect on river levels per se, but due to all the significant snow melt that has occurred and is still occurring, rivers are going to stay somewhat elevated,” Reese said.

The weather service issues a flood warning when it expects flood stages to be reached or exceeded. A flood advisory is an alert that flooding may become a problem.

As of Thursday morning, the National Weather Service had issued flood warnings in Nebraska for:

• The Platte River near Ashland.
• The Loup River, about 20 miles west of Columbus.
• The Elkhorn River near West Point.

In western Iowa, flood warnings were issued for:

• The Nishnabotna River near Hamburg.
• The East Nishnabotna at Red Oak.

Flood advisories remained in effect for Saunders, western Sarpy, southeastern Platte, Douglas, southern Dodge, southern Colfax and northern Butler counties.

On Friday, Gov. Dave Heineman will survey several areas in northeast Nebraska to evaluate flood risk. He will be joined by Al Berndt, assistant director of the Nebraska Emergency Management Agency.

“We have stepped up our monitoring efforts to ensure we are ready to respond to flood concerns,” Heineman said.

Their aerial tour will include the Linoma Beach area along the Platte River, and areas surrounding Fremont, Schuyler, Scribner, West Point, Genoa and Columbus.

“We do have a lot of fluctuations on portions of the Platte River and up in the West Point area on the Elkhorn with respect to ice action, and it's kind of anybody's guess as to when those things break free,” Reese said.

“In the meantime, when they're lodged, you just get a lot of water building up behind them.”

The Platte was rising near both Ashland and Louisville, he said.

“Expectations are that they will not exceed their respective flood stages,” Reese said.
But he also cautioned that ice in the stream can cause fluctuations of about one to three feet.

“That may exceed flood stage at times, it just depends if that ice lodges itself or gets clogged up somewhere along the way,” he said.

Authorities evacuated seven people from along Big Island Road just southwest of Fremont Wednesday night and Thursday morning after the Platte went over its banks there.

The river crested at about three feet over flood stage around 11:30 p.m., but by 1:30 a.m. was down to ankle deep, said Bill Pook of Region 5/6 Office of Emergency Management.

The flooding was due to ice jams on the Platte, Pook said. The evacuees were mostly elderly people who were wheelchair-bound or oxygen-dependent.

“Everybody else decided to stick it out, especially once the water showed signs of receding,” he said about 1:50 a.m. “These kinds of floods rise very quickly, but then they dissipate as quickly as they spike.”

World-Herald staff writer Andrew J. Nelson and the Associated Press contributed to this report.

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