Diane Meadors, her boyfriend and three dogs had been evacuated by airboat from their King Lake property Monday morning, escaping the rising water that encircled their house in western Douglas County.
But Monday afternoon, Meadors was ready to return to the acreage because she was concerned about the two horses she left behind.
Meadors had tried to get her 3-year-old palomino and 9-year-old quarter horse out in a trailer, but the water was too high to drive to the road.
So before she left, on the advice of a veterinarian, Meadors turned her horses loose so they could fend for themselves. Before doing so, however, Meadors painted her phone number on the side of each horse.
“I came back to see if my horses are OK,” she said. “I put on my swimsuit and a life jacket intending to swim in, but the State Patrol won’t let me go in there. Now, I’m just waiting out here on the road with everyone else.”
Lowland flooding along the Elkhorn River had displaced many of the approximately 400 residents in the King Lake subdivision, said Marty Bilek, the chief deputy of the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office. About 30 of them were evacuated Monday morning after they spent the night in their homes as the waters rose around them.
Monday night about 10 p.m., the Elkhorn River at Waterloo was at about 18.6 feet. Flood stage is 17 feet.
Meteorologist Scott Dergan of the National Weather Service office in Valley said the river was forecast to crest around noon Tuesday, at 18.7 feet.
“There’s still plenty of water upstream,” Dergan said.
Rich Tesar, a board member of the Papio-Missouri River Natural Resources District, sat in his pickup truck Monday on a bridge overlooking the Elkhorn River to the south and Rawhide Creek to the north. “This old river has been playing tricks on us,” Tesar said. “It rises a little bit, then it settles back down. We just have to wait and see if the crest is still coming or whether it has already passed.”
Among those waiting to hear whether the crest had come were residents of farmsteads and cabins up and down the Elkhorn, including R&R Acres on the east side of the river at 220th and Blondo Streets.
Bilek said 228th Street, the access road to about 400 residents at Riverside Lakes, also had been cut off by floodwaters.
Bilek said people who evacuated shouldn’t yet return to their homes.
“It gets a little frustrating, because we’re just getting people out of here, and others are coming back, asking to get in,” he said. “That just doesn’t make much sense.”
World-Herald staff writer Sarah Reinecke also contributed to this report.
Contact the writer:
444-1272, kevin.cole@owh.com
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