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Still Brewn

Still Brewn

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For those of you that have been too busy brewing the state of Nebraska has declared flood emergency in more than half of all counties in the state.(65 of 93 counties) A couple of statistics to demonstrate how bad things actually are...

Estimated $500,000,000 in livestock losses with an additional 1 million a day - so much for buying a nice t-bone this year.
Estimated $400,000,000 in crop losses, winter wheat that will never be harvested, fields that will be unable to be planted this spring, loss of grain storage and loss of stored grains (1,000,000 bushels of corn and 500,000 of soybeans in Iowa alone), loss of irrigation systems to water this years crops.
Lincoln NE a town of about 250,000 is on water restriction because of pump and power failures in Ashland where Lincoln gets all its water from in wells fed by the Platte river. We managed to cut 3 mil gallons of use today which will allow our local storage reservoirs refill.
VP Pence visited a the small town of Waterloo today a town that is about 5 miles or so from where my family has 3 properties between the Elkhorn river and the Platte river. One of the cabins is missing or submerged completly the one that is mine I can see in pictures overlooking the area the other we won't know until we can get it ther because it is surrounded by forest. Normally you can't see the water of the Elkhorn River from where this picture was taken.
Island flooding.jpg


But at least someone was able to have a brew through all of this.... Nebraska Strong!


https://mobile.twitter.com/gameseas...ion_20b87b6c-63ab-589d-bb61-818aea404791.html
 
Man, that sucks.
The numbers that are rising are crazy. The little water I got in my basement is nothing compared to what everybody is going through.
Prayers out to you guys, keep fighting
 
I got really lucky, the original forecast said we were going to get 2 inches of rain on top of the 18+ inches of snow and ice i had in the yard. Most of it missed us and landed to the east and west of us. No water in the basement and i have had water before because of that kind of weather. So having a flooded summer cabin is no big deal if I can still brew/have a cold one.

I took a closer look at the picture and the one room schoolhouse is still standing so things can't be too bad. It is about 2 foot lower in elevation than mine. It is one of the white dots about center right in the picture the other white almost dead center is mine.
 
Southern MN aand Western IA got hit a bit as well. Not nearly as bad as NE. Sitting in NW Wisconsin at the cabin. Still have a little more than 1.5' of snow on the ground. Temps are warming rapidly. If the snow in Northern MN and WI melt pretty rapidly. Eastern IA, Illinois and Missouri could be in trouble next.
20190320_110718.jpeg
 
Good luck with that snow melt, prepare for it now if you can. Some one found a mile long 20 ft high chunk of ice in a northern nebraska field today. I couldn't find a picture yet. No way to protect property from something like that though.
They have added counties to the disaster declaration, now at 74 of 96. It sound like your 1.5 ft of snow and the snow to the west as going to melt rapidly and cause more problems for everyone else that hasn't been affected yet. Updated cattle losses are at $400,000,000 from Nebraska alone. Hog farmer near valley with 700 head has 14 left.
In Lincoln we lucked out again, they were able to get several wells up and running today so we are no longer on a mandatory 50% water restriction it has been replaced by a voluntary 25% reduction. Tomorrow car washes may open again and restaraunts can start using washable dishes again instead of disposable.
 
I've been keeping one eye on this. My cousins are on farms south of Geneva. When I read about Wahoo flooding, half joked about hoping my favorite Dairy Queen wasn't flooded out. Grandparents, mom's side (both sets lived in Lincoln), had a cabin at Lake Leba right off the Platte. Saw internet news saying Lincoln water supply was fine but that was last weekend. Things change so fast with flooding...trust me, living in Central Texas, we know flooding. When Nebraska gets on the national news it's usually not good or we won a National Championship. Sorry for your woes. Best wishes and healing thoughts for the home country.
 
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Thanks again everyone.... after a long life of dodging natural disasters I decided that I am pretty damn lucky. Today I'm feeling that way so I just went and bought a Powerball ticket.
I originally frm Washington and lived south of St Helens when it blew. Experienced earthquakes none very bad. Experienced a tornado up close and personal when it took out the store across the street from where we were shopping. In Florida I experienced a second tornado up close and personal as it moved beside us as we were driving home from the store. It managed to keep pace with us as we were going west on hwy 98. It took out a number of homes and businesses across the street from my kids school a block from our house. We moved away from Florida the winter before the hurricane went through the panhandle and took out the entire neighborhood we lived in except the place we lived the 5 years we were there.

So here to one more day of good luck!
Whiskey barrel stout.jpg
 
Born in Lincoln but we moved to California when I was 5. Spent every summer in Nebraska, as said, with grandparents. Never experienced a tornado tho. Supposedly missed a couple at the lake in Fremont by a day or two. Lincoln is in a bowl so little chance from from GPs used to say. Experinced the 7.0 "World Series" earthquake front and center, was in front of a poly tub full of Hydrofloric acid when it hit. We had some Harvey damage here in Austin but can't imagine that hurrican/flooding action up front. Cant imagine a volcano neither!

Hope your disaster days are over. If you ever what to share your HB, join us here...

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/forum/index.php?threads/660812/
 
My nephew was finally able to get to 2 of the properties with a 4 wheeler yesterday. He says buildings are salvageable but are filled with mud. With more rain coming it may be some time befor we can get the proper equipment in because the roads (gravel) have a ton of mud and sand deposited on them and since it is all private property there is no help from the county on the roads.
 
At least most of the 1-2 ft of snow expected will not be over the areas that still have standing water or are still flooding. Of course they are saying damaging winds, hail and possibly tornados for that area.

Recovery is moving along our town finally is off water restrictions as of late last week. There are towns and whole counties that are not so fortunate. Boyd county for example had water and sewer lines washed away when the flooding washed away a dam on the Niobrara River. Fema is saying it could be a year and a half before the get any money. They need about $400,000 for repairs. If i understand correctly the pipeline provides water for most of the county residents.

With all the failures It is amazing that anyone at the army corps of engineers still has a job. One of the areas that was flooded actually only flooded because the town dikes built only a few years ago were forced to be lowered because the army corps of engineers said it was too high.
https://news.yahoo.com/dam-burst-on...vbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDVUlDMV8xBHNlYwNzcg--
 
Still Brewn said:
At least most of the 1-2 ft of snow expected will not be over the areas that still have standing water or are still flooding. Of course they are saying damaging winds, hail and possibly tornados for that area.

Recovery is moving along our town finally is off water restrictions as of late last week. There are towns and whole counties that are not so fortunate. Boyd county for example had water and sewer lines washed away when the flooding washed away a dam on the Niobrara River. Fema is saying it could be a year and a half before the get any money. They need about $400,000 for repairs. If i understand correctly the pipeline provides water for most of the county residents.

With all the failures It is amazing that anyone at the army corps of engineers still has a job. One of the areas that was flooded actually only flooded because the town dikes built only a few years ago were forced to be lowered because the army corps of engineers said it was too high.
https://news.yahoo.com/dam-burst-on...vbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDVUlDMV8xBHNlYwNzcg--
Click to expand...
Well I imagine a storm like this wasn't ever expected. Year and a half for 400k? For the richest government in the world? Wow! It's tornado season anyway but let's hope for no more pain. Maybe just maybe this can be a wake up call for climate change. **** like this is a happening all over the world but poeple only care when it affects them.
 
I get the "never expected" aspect of the whole thing but that is no excuse. The Basic function of a flood control dam is to deal with the unexpected, unexpected amounts of precipitation and unexpected speed of snow melt. Nebraska has more miles of river than any other state, there are flood control dams everywhere. Someone is not doing their job properly and that is why less than 10 years after the previous round of flooding and millions of dollars spent, the same little town of Hamburg IA is completely flooded again. The last flooding was in part because of the extreme snowpack in Colorado, heavy rains in South Dakota and the lack of release of water from dams on the Missouri river and Platte rivers. "There are 15 dams in total on the Missouri, and nearly 100 more on its tributaries." http://www.nebraskalife.com/The-Great-Flood-of-2011/
There is no excuse for this kind of damage if everyone was doing their job correctly. They knew how much snow/ice was on the ground they also knew for a week there was a damaging storm on the way and it was going to dump a lot of precipitation. The flood control should have been able to handle everything that was on the ground already, it is just common sense. No.... we get a repeat of 2011 only 10 times worse. Instead of the flood control dams easing the flooding they compounded the problem by failing. When the start of spring melting of the snow pack didn't occur as usual the dams should have been releasing water anyway as if it was happening. Common sense tells you that when melting does start it will happen much faster due to warmer temperatures and more intense solar radiation.
 

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