Keeping an eye on the river

Different day, different towns.

Same discouraging story.

More flooding. More hail. Another tornado.

Nebraska communities, mostly in the southeastern part of the state, spent Monday cleaning up from all three.

After five weeks of damaging weather, Nebraska emergency officials are bracing for another round of potentially life-threatening and property-swallowing storms and flooding.

Of particular concern is the Missouri River.

The river set a record at Rulo on Monday when it reached 25.75 feet, just above the previous record of 25.6 feet.

“Right now our concerns are the levees,” said Jim Gerweck, Richardson County's emergency manager. “The river's been high for a week, and if the water stays up ... some of those levees are going to be more at risk than they are now.”

Personnel at Cooper Nuclear Station near Brownville have been preparing for flooding. However, based on current flood forecasts, it's not expected that the plant will have to shut down, said Mark Becker, a spokesman for Nebraska Public Power District.

Jody Farhat of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said that releases from upstream reservoirs on the Missouri River were nearly halved Sunday night to allow the river to subside.

That curtailment won't shave anything off the river's crest, she said, but should accelerate its drop at the end of this week. The curtailment should account for a drop of about 6 inches by the time the water arrives in southeastern Nebraska in a few days.

A nightly chance for storms remains in the forecast for the rest of the week, according to the National Weather Service.

Mike Moritz, meteorologist with the weather service at Hastings, Neb., said a cold front arriving Tuesday was expected to have the potential to fire up a potent round of severe weather, largely in central and eastern Nebraska.

“It looks like that's where all the action will be,” he said. “High winds, flooding rains, damaging hail, even an isolated tornado are possible.”

A similar threat extends across the northern half of Iowa, according to the U.S. Storm Prediction Center.

Sunday evening, a rain-drenched supercell thunderstorm shrouded the tornado that hit the community of Superior.

Fire Chief Todd Kroeger sounded the sirens when he saw what he thought might be a tornado. He was right. The sirens went off, and an EF2 tornado slammed into the community of about 2,000 people.

On Monday, he estimated that about 35 percent of the town's homes had significant damage. Two families were displaced.

“I'm really shocked we don't have more roof or house damage,” he said.

Moritz said the tornado seemed to target Superior.

“Whatever this tornado did, it bounced right down on the town, did its damage and lifted up,” Moritz said.

What's troubling to Kroeger is that significant damage isn't always immediately obvious. Some families on Monday were just discovering that the tornado had damaged their roofs or slightly shifted homes off their foundations. He expected more damage to be discovered later this week.

Any noticeable rain Tuesday poses another significant threat of flash flooding because the Midlands remain saturated.

Lincoln and other communities experienced flash flooding Sunday night as torrential rains fell. Rainfall amounts were 4.78 inches in Syracuse, 3.34 inches in Raymond, 2.75 inches in Seward and 2.34 inches in Lincoln. The official Omaha reading was 0.61 of an inch at Eppley Airfield, but neighborhood gauges in the city recorded up to 1.8 inches, in midtown and in the southwest corner of the city.

Record flooding was reported on Weeping Water Creek at Union, the only gauge on that creek. The Weeping Water Creek rose 2 feet above its previous record and about 7 to 8 feet above flood stage, said Kim Thomas, chief of emergency management for the Corps of Engineers.

Officials said homes were flooded in several communities, including Weeping Water, Avoca, Nehawka and Union.

For the most part, southeastern Nebraska bore the brunt of the heavy rainfall Sunday night. The Norfolk area of northeast Nebraska had another day of dropping water levels.

The Platte River system across Nebraska also has been running high. Minor flooding is forecast for Grand Island, Kearney, Cozad, Lewellen and Roscoe, and moderate flooding is already occurring at Mitchell.

Brian Dunnigan, director of the Nebraska Department of Natural Resources, said releases in Wyoming were curtailed Sunday night to reduce the flood risk on the Platte River in Nebraska. However, it will be several days before the benefit of that is felt in western Nebraska.

World-Herald staff writers Juan Perez Jr., Paul Hammel, Joel Fulton and Susan Szalewski contributed to this report.

Contact the writer:

444-1102, nancy.gaarder@owh.com

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