March 2019 Floods

In mid-March 2019, the most powerful bomb cyclone to hit the region in decades swept across the Great Plains. Nebraska was both particularly cold when it hit, with soil frost levels unusually deep, and hit hard by what would become two to three-plus inches of rain across the region. The water could not infiltrate the soil, and so the absorbent Sandhills soils did not absorb. Instead, water flowed overland to streams and rivers in the region. The overland flow quickly melted much of the snow on the ground, further increasing the amount of water draining the landscape. Because of the earlier cold weather through much of February and March, river ice was particularly thick and when the waters rose, that ice began to break up. The floodwaters carried these massive ice blocks—some as large as pickup trucks—until they inevitably got caught in bends in the rivers, under bridges, and at dams. The ice jams and resulting flooding led to more than $2.6 billion in damage. Throughout much of 2019, precipitation rates and water table levels remained elevated. In the spring, while researchers at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln worried about when water levels would decrease enough to safely continue ongoing investigations of these aquatic ecosystems, residents of the Sandhills wondered when roads, bridges, pastures, and, in some cases, homes would once again be usable. Highways in the Sandhills remained flooded for months. In June, Highway 83 was still under five inches of water, and the flooded highway in August was still flanked by stoplights, dictating one-way traffic on the stretch, and the soaked, overtopped sandbags along the edge of the road seemed like omens of our inability to manage climate-change-related crises without a substantial, coordinated effort.