Editor's note: This retelling of the story of the 1952 flood — the flood of the century — was published in April 2002 to mark the 50th anniversary. Click here for a timeline of the 1952 flood.
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Omaha was the bottleneck.
Council Bluffs was the cork.
The flooding Missouri River was 14 miles wide, blowing out rural levees and swallowing land from bluff to bluff as it sliced its way south between Nebraska and Iowa.
Swollen by a flash thaw in the mountains of Montana and the snow-covered plains of the Dakotas, the nation's longest river mounted a last, historic rampage before dams tamed its wild nature.
It was the flood of the century.
At the river's Omaha and Council Bluffs narrows, hills and levees channeled the water into a 500-yard funnel. Either the river would choke past the cities, or it would pop the Council Bluffs plug and wash through 7,700 houses and scores of businesses in the West End lowlands, where evacuations already had displaced nearly 30,000 people. Thousands also had been moved on the Omaha side of the river.
Hydrologists raised flood-crest estimates daily. Omaha's industrial riverfront and community water-supply systems on both sides of the river were doomed — unless nearly 30 miles of federal levees were quickly elevated and reinforced.
What happened next is part of Omaha and Council Bluffs lore.
Tens of thousands of men and women of all ages and backgrounds waged a heroic, around-the-clock battle to hold back the floodwaters. Brigades of people filled and toted 5.5 million sandbags and topped Omaha's new levees with a 4-foot-high wooden rim. The water came to within six inches of topping the barricades.
The Army Corps of Engineers estimates that 25,000 men and women — more people than an Army division — toiled behind the long levees and bending floodwalls.
Bluffs Mayor James F. Mulqueen and Omaha Mayor Glenn Cunningham led the local army of workers and volunteers who caught the attention of President Truman and the nation.
Edward R. Murrow, the famed CBS broadcaster, reported from Omaha as the crest approached: “Whatever the outcome might be, these people have already met the big test. … There is a community of effort. There is a great deal of improvisation. But above all, there is a steadiness and a willingness to work.”
When the Big Muddy finally crested April 18 at a point more than 11 feet above flood stage, the cities were saved from all but lowland flooding.
Below Omaha — as they did to the north — the Iowa bottomlands caught the full blast of the floodwaters' power.
In 2002, a statue was unveiled on the Iowa riverfront commemorating the people on both sides of the Missouri who held back the water.
“These local heroes,” said Bluffs Mayor Tom Hanafan, “saved our community.”
Contact the writer:
402-444-1127, david.hendee@owh.com
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