Flooding in Bellevue, Nebraska in March.Photo: Nati Harnik/AP/REX/Shutterstock
Parts of Nebraska, Missouri and Iowa are experiencing disastrous flooding as a result of heavy rains and snow melt that has killed at least three people and left two others missing.
“He was always the first to go help somebody,” the farmer’s cousin, Paul Wilke, told theOmaha World-Herald. “He was a person who wouldn’t just talk about making things better. He would do it.”
Betty Hamernik, 80, was found deceased after rescuers couldn’t reach her Columbus, Nebraska, home due to rising floodwaters and wind gusts, the Platte County Sheriff’s Office toldKOLN.
Two men who are missing are alsopresumed dead.
“This really is the most devastating flooding we’ve probably ever had in our state’s history, from the standpoint of how widespread it is,” Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts said on Monday, according toCNN.
More than 8 million residents in the Midwest and the Mississippi River Valley are currently under flood warnings,CNNreports.
Flooding in Omaha, Nebraska.Nati Harnik/AP/REX/Shutterstock
Linda McClain, a councilwoman from Fremont, Nebraska, said the flood has left residents trapped in the town.
“We’re like an island,” she told theNew York Times. “You cannot get in or out.”
“Right now, we’re in crisis mode,” she added.
Electricity and gas were cut off for the town of Pacific Junction in Iowa when they were ordered to evacuate on Sunday after two levees failed and a levee was breached along the Missouri River, according toWeather.com.
Nati Harnik/AP/REX/Shutterstock
“It’s total devastation,” resident Laura Sucha toldWeather.com. “The ice just destroyed everything.”
The town’s bridge, called the Mormon Creek Bridge, was washed away in the floods, asvideo shows.
According to The Weather Channel, more than three dozen locations in the Midwest have set new flood records during the tragedy. Heavy rains are expected to continue through the week.
source: people.com
