Watching, cleaning up after the storm

A day after storms damaged at least two farmsteads in the Herman area, all eyes were on area creeks and rivers.

Volunteers are watching the slow rise of the Platte River along Fremont’s southern border and in North Bend, said Bill Pook, Region 5-6 Emergency Management director.

The National Weather Service in Valley has issued a flood warning for the Platte River near North Bend until late Sunday night. The river was at 7.9 feet at 7:30 p.m. Friday, just below the 8-foot flood stage. The forecast was for the river to rise to near 8.8 feet by Saturday morning before it starts to fall.

In the Big Island area, floodwaters already were inching near Ridgeland Road on Friday night, Pook said.

He urged boaters to stay off the Platte and Elkhorn rivers because the flows are heavy and debris is hard to spot at times.

"I have never seen the Platte River run so fast," Pook said.

He and Fremont Rural Fire Department Chief Wade McPherson estimated the river water to be flowing at 25 mph.

"It’s moving so fast that it’s hard to tell what’s in there," Pook said. "It’s full bank to bank."

Pook and other emergency management personnel spent much of Friday watching the levels on area creeks and rivers.

Flooding in lowland areas around the Elkhorn River and Maple Creek in Dodge County and Sand Creek in Saunders County forced some roads to be closed, at least temporarily.

For a while Friday, all roads into Wahoo were closed because of flooding on Sand Creek. But those roads were open by 6 p.m.

U.S. Highway 275 between Scribner and West Point was closed for a time Friday, too. But it had reopened by 10 p.m.

Nebraska Highway 91 near Nickerson, however, was still listed as closed on the Nebraska Road Condition Web site.

Creeks in Dodge County were pretty "static" by early Friday evening, Pook said.

Nebraska Department of Roads

Please see Storm, A2

crews worked during the day to clear debris from the U.S. 77 and 275 bridges over Maple Creek, where water was up to the bottom of the bridges.

Over near Herman, however, it was a day for Vicki Potadle to watch an electrician restore power to her family’s farmhouse and wait for the insurance adjuster.

The family’s home suffered just minor damage but the farmstead lost several out buildings and trees during Thursday’s storm. A neighbor also lost the roof from a barn.

The National Weather Service has not determined if a tornado struck the Potadle’s property, but she thinks so.

Trees snapped all around the family’s house, but only two attic windows were broken during the storm, she said. After talking with visitors late Thursday, she said they thought straight wind damage would have been more evenly distributed.

Potadle said family members were cleaning up after returning from baseball games when the storm hit between 7:30 and 8 p.m.

"Last night, it came so fast," she said. "They say a tornado sounds like a freight train. It was louder than a freight train.

"You could see things flying," she added.

It’s not the first time Potadle and her children have gone into the home’s basement during a storm. But it was the first time her husband, Eric, went with them.

Typically, she said, she keeps a "tornado" box in the basement with a change of clothes, food and water. But she hadn’t packed it yet for this year.

The family was able to keep with touch with relatives in Omaha via cell phone and stayed in the basement until the storms had passed. They later stayed with relatives because the house did not have power.

What they saw when they came out was the remains of a barn and shed and lots of tree limbs. The storm sent the roof of the barn through a tree, leaving what looked like a larger-than-life football goal post. Metal pieces of the shed were tossed across a field that had not yet been planted.

At least two of the family’s center pivot irrigation units were damaged, she said. And floodwaters covered one of their fields that already had been planted with corn.

By noon on Friday she still hadn’t assessed all of the damage. The attic, where the two windows blew out, was filled with personal items.

"I haven’t been up there yet," she said.