It was exactly what rain-soaked eastern Nebraska didn't need.
A line of thunderstorms Tuesday night swept though the region, bringing torrential rains, power outages and flash flood warnings.
Those warnings remain in place, but as of 6:30 a.m., none of Nebraska's counties had reported flash flooding problems to the Nebraska Emergency Management Agency.
A second round of rain is moving through Douglas and Sarpy Counties this morning. Showers are expected to linger through about 9 a.m.
The metro had about 2 inches of new rain in a 24-hour period ending at 6 a.m. About an inch of that fell in the morning hours, according to the National Weather Service.
More than 9,800 Omaha customers were without power in the wee hours Wednesday, said a spokesman for the Omaha Public Power District. By mid-morning Wednesday, about 1,900 customers remained without power.
The outage area ranged from the Memorial Park and Benson neighborhoods to as far west as Interstate 680, said Jeff Hanson, the spokesman.
The heavy rains led the National Weather Service to issue flash flood warnings for Omaha, Council Bluffs, Bellevue, La Vista, Papillion and Ralston.Street flooding was widely reported in Omaha, including at Saddle Creek Road and Cuming Street.
High winds accompanied the storm, knocking down trees and power lines.
A blown-over tree blocked 65th Street between Lafayette and Western Avenues, Omaha police said. Downed power lines also were seen on 65th Street, police said.
Emergency radio dispatchers reported a transformer fire in that neighborhood and a lightning strike that caused a house fire at 70th and Grant Streets.
A 70 mph wind gust was reported near Hartington, Neb., and there was a report of golfball-sized hail at Norfolk, said Van DeWald, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service office in Valley.
Storms moved out of the Omaha area late Thursday, but multiple locations in western Iowa remained under severe weather warnings.
The heavy rains only raised concerns about further flooding in the region. Rivers remain high and reservoirs are full.
Emergency managers say they won't be able to relax until area rivers drop below flood stage and the many earthen dams that dot Nebraska are under less pressure.
With major rivers at or above flood stage and local streams and creeks prone to flash flooding, it has been a while since the region hasn't been under some type of flood threat.
“Everything is saturated, I can't stress this enough,” said Rick Sloan, a hydrologist from the Dodge City, Kan., office of the weather service, who is on temporary assignment in the Omaha area to help with the flooding. “We need several days of drier weather to get this water out of the system so that the ground can actually take more.”
The Elkhorn River is again projected to rise above just above flood stage at Waterloo Thursday into Friday. Flood stage is 17 feet, and minor flooding is forecast, including the potential for more flooding at King Lake, given that the river is expected to rise to about 17.3 feet by Friday morning.
Before Tuesday night's storm, the Missouri River in southeast Nebraska appeared to have crested.
The river set a record at Rulo on Monday, when it reached 26.15 feet, just above the previous high of 25.6 feet in 1952. Flood stage is 17 feet. The river is forecast to remain near its record level into the weekend.
Even as the river eventually declines, levees will remain under tremendous pressure, said Monique Farmer, spokeswoman for the Army Corps of Engineers. The corps is monitoring its levees on a 24-hour basis.
The Missouri River levees near Corning, Mo., and Brownville, Neb., have been the closest to being overtopped.
Nebraska Public Power District began protective sandbagging of its nuclear power station near Brownville, but the utility did not anticipate having to shut down the plant.
For at least the next few days, the corps plans to curtail releases from upstream reservoirs on the Missouri River, Farmer said. Those releases were cut nearly in half Sunday night, but at some point in the near future the corps plans to resume higher releases.
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