11-foot wall of water: One dam breaks, three counties suffer — The Lincoln Journal Star
Nebraska
state officials flew over the flood-ravaged Spencer Dam on March 16,
2019. The Niobrara River had been running at 5 or 6 feet of gage height
before it broke through the 90-year-old dam early on March 14, 2019.
After that, an 11-foot wave rolled through. Photo credit: State of
Nebraska
Here’s a report on the flooding in Nebraska from Peter Salter writing for The Lincoln Journal Star. Click through and read the whole article and check out the various videos. Here’s an excerpt:
From their offices in Lincoln early Thursday,
hydrologists with the U.S. Geological Survey were monitoring the final
few moments of a stream gauge more than 200 miles away, on the Niobrara
River.
It was hinting at something catastrophic.
“We were watching it from here, and it looked like something
incredible was happening that we couldn’t believe,” said Jason
Lambrecht. “And suddenly, everything went dark.”
The gauge had been ripped away by the wall of water released when the
90-year-old Spencer Dam failed under the pressure of the river, swollen
with rain and rapid snowmelt and broken ice. But its last readings
allowed Lambrecht to measure the size of the surge.
Earlier, the Niobrara had been running at 5 or 6 feet of gauge
height. After it broke through the dam, it measured nearly 17.5 feet. It
wasn’t a gradual increase, either…
And in its wake, three Nebraska counties would learn how that much
moving water can become immediately destructive and potentially deadly.
How it can cause instant pain and long-term suffering. How it can harm
not only those in its path, but those living miles away.
First, the wave swept away a section of U.S. 281, a nearby riverside
saloon and at least one home, possibly occupied. And it continued
downstream, barreling toward the town of Niobrara — and its mouth at the
Missouri River — about 40 miles away. Knox County: ‘It’s crazy’
The service station owners thought they were ready for the coming water.
They’d taken the tire machine and other equipment away. They brought
the important paperwork home. They put their ’68 Camaro up on the lift.
They moved the rest of what they could to higher ground, filling the
rafters with inventory.
And the couple had a huge inventory. Vic’s Service has anchored the
west edge of Niobrara for 25 years, and had enough hydraulic fittings
and plumbing pieces to serve as a kind of farmer’s supply store, said
Ruth Janak, who co-owns the station with her husband, Victor.
They checked on their business Wednesday, and found it already
swamped with 4 feet of water, her desk upturned, pop machines on their
sides. A mess, but nothing they couldn’t handle.
“We thought, when the water recedes, we’ll be able to get in and clean all that up,” she said.
They returned Thursday, and found most of it missing.
“Our main building, the one we did our business at, it’s gone. The
gas pumps are gone. We lost the propane tank. So many tools are gone,”
Janak said Friday. “Where’s all that stuff at? It’s crazy.”
Later, she would find a jug of hydraulic fluid — and someone else’s
pontoon boat — on what remained of the town’s golf course. But their
main building, and much of what it contained, had likely tumbled
downstream.
Theirs wasn’t the only missing building. The wall of water had
brutalized Niobrara’s west side, a low-lying commercial district, and
the part of town closest to the river.
Jody Stark, the chair of the village board, listed the other
casualties. Several buildings from a hay business? Gone. A state
Department of Transportation garage? Gone. A Knox County road shop?
Gone. The Mormon Bridge on Nebraska 12? Stark has video of the deck
floating away. The Country Cafe? Still standing, but it had been nearly
swallowed by water and ice, with maybe a foot of the roof visible at one
point.
“A lot of buildings washed away,” he said. “They were pretty much
swept right down the river and they’re in the Missouri somewhere.”
The good news? Almost all of the 300 or so residents of Niobrara live
on higher ground, and weren’t directly hurt by the floodwaters…
Still, his town was struggling. The flooding compromised the town’s
two wells, leaving its residents without a water supply, and the fire
department was going door-to-door, filling containers. Getting in and
out of town was also difficult; by Friday, the Standing Bear Bridge to
South Dakota had reopened, and there was one passable gravel road south
of town. Nebraska 14, the main route south out of Niobrara, was so
strewn with ice it was only open for emergency travel.
The damage was unprecedented, Stark said, and worse than they had
originally expected. But that was before they’d heard the Spencer Dam
had failed and even more water was headed their way…
The Spencer Dam was a flow-through hydroelectric dam, with
garage-type doors that let water through, and Becker said it wasn’t
known whether the doors had been open or closed at the time. They
disappeared downstream, he said.
Its breach triggered immediate and long-term problems. It swept away a
Holt County house just downstream, and authorities were still searching
for its owner.
“On March 14th at around 5 in the morning the dam on the niobrara
river south of Spencer NE was overtaken by flooding and ice jams. 2 days
prior to this there was significant snow melting. 1 day prior there was
all day rain measuring 1-1.5 inches. The ground was still frozen from
recent below normal temperatures. All that water broke loose ice chunks
the size of cars and trucks. The dam was no match for this extreme
force. The dam and the dike were both destroyed. The water then washed
out Hwy 281 and flooding many communities downstream.” — Birkel Dirtwork
And the force of the flow severed the supply of water to the north,
in Boyd County. Many of its 2,000 residents relied on the pipeline from
Holt County that was buried beneath the river. Now that it’s gone, they
don’t have the water they need for drinking, for livestock, for
flushing.
They received a truckload of bottled water Friday, enough to last
maybe a day, said Doug Fox, Boyd County’s emergency management
coordinator. They need more…
And Boyd County was struggling to stay connected with the rest of the
state. The failure of Spencer Dam took out a pair of routes over the
Niobrara River, and the only ways out of Boyd County were north into
South Dakota or west into Keya Paha County, Fox said.
Nebraska
Rivers Shown on the Map: Beaver Creek, Big Blue River, Calamus River,
Dismal River, Elkhorn River, Frenchman Creek, Little Blue River,
Lodgepole Creek, Logan Creek, Loup River, Medicine Creek, Middle Loup
River, Missouri River, Niobrara River, North Fork Big Nemaha River,
North Loup River, North Platte River, Platte River, Republican River,
Shell Creek, South Loup River, South Platte River, White River and Wood
River. Nebraska Lakes Shown on the Map: Harlan County Lake, Hugh
Butler Lake, Lake McConaughy, Lewis and Clark Lake and Merritt
Reservoir. Map credit: Geology.com
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