(More) Historic Flooding

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Let's get some more information here fromour friend John Winkler, who was so
helpful to us in the previous floodingsituations and as a manager of the Papio
Missouri River NRD. John, Goodmorning, good to have you on.
Good morning Gary, thanks for havingme man, I appreciate the time.
What can you tell us, well? Number one, how how wide of
an area do you do you manageor do you survey? Are you are

(00:22):
you looking at this whole region rightnow or primarily just the Art District goes
all the way from the confluence ofthe Platt in the Missouri all the way
up to South Siaust City, Sowe have the whole northeast part of the
Missouri River there. Okay, sowe're looking here. I heard the flood
advisory for us for about a weekright starting midweek this week through early next

(00:42):
week. Yeah, so it's expectedto peak Wednesday or Thursday thirty four point
eight feet, which is it's prettysignificant. And then yeah, it'll it'll
stay for a little while, butit will it will move out and assuming
we don't get any additional rain fromthe base. And again, so there
was about a three hundred square milearea of South Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa

(01:06):
that got ten to fifteen inches ofrain, and then subsequently after that,
in the next seventy two hour periodthey got about six to eight in a
adjacent three hundred square mile area.So that's where we're getting all of this
water from. So if we getthat by midweek, that level that you
mentioned a minute ago, what willthat mean for Omaha in terms of flooding.

(01:30):
Well, so what we're doing rightnow is we're working with City of
the Lmaha and the corp of Engineersobviously all of our other partners, and
we're preparing We're deploying railroad closure floodwalls to close those areas off from flooding.
Omaha's preparing their treatment plant down bythe Pavilion Creek for any significant flooding
there. So what we're doing iswe're just getting ready to absorb that much

(01:53):
water. We just completed last Decemberthe rehab of the levee that protects off
at Air Force Base and the Omaha'sPitturiu Creek treatment plant, so this will
be its first big test. Sothat was a forty million dollar project.
But when you're protecting billions of dollarsof assets, not only local but national

(02:14):
security assets. That's an easy trade, right, So we'll see how that
that functions. And assuming that thereis no levee breaches or we don't,
we don't have any of the problemswe should, whether it's just fine.
So again, we're we're working witheverybody right now, and we're preparing one
thing about a flood. You knowexactly where it's going to happen, and

(02:35):
so we're we're buttoning up patches andwe're going to do it. We do
on a daily basis. Yeah,not sure this is in your wheelhouse here,
John, But I got an emailfrom Michael who says, is the
is the flooding a result of theholdback they do for the Big Sioux recreation
area upstream? Do you know aboutthat now? I think the flood is

(02:55):
just over such a huge area theriver systems up there, and there's a
number of them. They're they're atrecord stages, so they're experiencing record stages,
you know, historical types of rainevents. So no, I would
not think that just holding back somemore for a reservoirs really affecting this.
I know the cores is we're workingwith them, and they you know,
cut down releases from Gavin's point tohelp. But you know that infrastructure only

(03:21):
so much. If it's raining belowit, you know, it really doesn't
have an effect. So that's sure, you know, I guess it's just
people need to realize that, youknow, when a big rain event or
a big event occurs, you know, can contre hundreds of miles away and
it will you know, have adirect impact. And is obviously it's funny
here uh little, you know,getting some heat and everybody's saying the last
thing they're thinking is a flood.Well, you know here here it comes.

(03:44):
So we're getting ready. When youlook up stream from here on the
Nebraska side, particularly say Blair goup to at the Cama Decatur. From
some of the images I've seen,John, they're looking for serious flooding up
there. Yeah, I mean therewill be some impacts, there's no question
about it. But you know hereI'm here closer to the metro. You

(04:06):
know, we have those those levysystems, we have that infrastructure in place,
and I think you've seen at therains that we had here in the
Omaha area at the end of May. You know, all those investments we've
made of flood control and flood mitigationfor seventy years. They paid for themselves

(04:26):
in one event. So you know, those are the types of things that
you know that that we do.That's what we do, and that's what
the Core does. And you know, we've had people over the years say,
you know, you guys are crazy. You're waiting all this money building
these things, and yeah, butit just takes one storm and you recoup
that investment. And just look atthe property and the lives and everything that's
been saved just in a couple eventsthat have occurred. So we think there

(04:50):
wise investments and we don't think weget lucky. We think that we you
know, we're doing what we're supposedto do and we've built these things over
the years and they work, youknow, you know they're not one hundred
percent all the time, but ninetynine ninety eight I'll take that. Yeah.
Indeed, indeed, John, let'sstay in touch. I appreciate your
time. No time you need anythingelse, thank you, we'll do.

(05:13):
John Winkler, Manager Papellion or Papia, Missouri River NRD here