Residents of Nebraska in the worst affected areas of its recent “bomb cyclone” have compared the damage from blizzards and flooding to the Dust Bowl that hit the Midwest in the early 20th century.
“For any one day, that probably tops the 1930s,” said Daryl Obermeyer in reference to the environmental disaster that struck the Midwest from 1931 to 1939. “In my lifetime, I’ve never seen one event affect so much of the state at one time,” said Obermeyer, a Nebraska farmer and cooperative observer for over 40 years with the U.S. National Weather Service.
Trump approved a disaster declaration for Nebraska Thursday after Gov. Pete Ricketts, a Republican, requested it to help free up federal funds to be used to clean up the destruction from the bomb cyclone, which included snow in the northern parts of the state and flooding throughout parts of the whole state. Over 70 of Nebraska’s 93 counties are under emergency declaration.
Vice President Pence visited Nebraska Tuesday to survey the damage, assuring Ricketts and members of Nebraska’s federal delegation that the federal government would help assist as necessary. “We’re going to stand with you and be with you until these communities come all the way back,” he said. “Help is on the way.”
Jody Stark, the mayor of the village Niobrara, one of the worst-hit places in the state, also compared the event to the Dust Bowl. “It looked like the world was coming to an end when the wall of water and ice was coming at us,” said Stark. North central Nebraska was one of the areas most devastated by blizzard conditions and the breaking of the Spencer Dam along the Niobrara River that led to massive flooding and likely the death of one man.
According to the Nebraska Emergency Management Agency, the bomb cyclone, which caused historic high river levels and flooding, including the Missouri river, affected over 95 percent of the state’s residents and more than 59,000 square miles, or 76 percent of Nebraska’s land mass. Parts of Offutt Air Force Base, located just outside Omaha, were flooded by water too. Offutt includes the U.S. military’s Strategic Command, which is crucial to discovering and responding to global threats, NEMA said.
NEMA called the flooding “historically catastrophic” and said, “Many Nebraska towns are reeling.”
The Dust Bowl, a series of dust storms which struck the Midwest and southern U.S. throughout the 1930s, affected Nebraska along with Kansas, Colorado, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas, and resulted in the deaths of thousands and the migration of hundreds of thousands more. It took years for the Midwest to recover.
State officials estimate the total cost of damage to crops, cattle, and infrastructure in the state already to be over $1.3 billion. Shane Greckel, a farmer in northeast Nebraska, said he expects that number will at least double, as it does not include the cost of broken infrastructure and uninsured damages to farmers’ properties. Stark echoed the sentiment, saying he expected it would take at least two to three years before his community returns to normalcy.
