2019 Flood Recovery: North Bend, NE (Part 2)

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Last week we looked into the history of North Bend and how the small community along the Platt River was impacted by the Floods of 2019. Now we’ll look deeper into the exemplary recovery efforts by North Bend’s leadership to recover from the floods.

Leading in a Time of Need

With their town inundated by floodwaters, community leaders took charge of the situation.

North Bend representatives formed a recovery committee that met often. The team met at least once a day. But early on they met twice a day to improve communications and resolve pressing issues.

The brain child of Dan Endorf, the high school superintendent, the recovery committee was made up of a number of community members with important roles in the recovery effort. The composition of the committee varied throughout the recovery process. At inception, there was 10 members, but members came and went as need and availability changed. This varied the number in attendance.

Members of the committee had various roles during the recovery. For instance, one managed the Donation Depot in the high school. Another was the volunteer coordinator, assigning those willing to help to the jobs that needed to be done. Others managed the task to feed the throngs of volunteers that worked up a hefty appetite.

They also secured a dumpsite for flood-damaged material. The dumpsite was effectively arranged in five primary zones and three subzones to efficiently separate materials to properly dispose the more hazardous materials, like car batteries, differently than furniture and other general household goods. They also took pictures and recorded the weight of each trailer of junk. Proper documentation was required for federal reimbursement of costs.

Get the Word Out

Providing information to the public is important. Not only in disaster response, but also disaster recovery. In the past, this task was tougher as the mediums to provide the information were limited. But as social media has evolved, dissemination of important information has gotten somewhat easier. “Somewhat” is the operative word though as access to internet service may be limited during and after a disaster event. Also, with a wide array of information sources, the pubic will often need to know where to look to ahead of an event.

North Bend’s efforts to get the word out was exemplary for a community of its size. This was due in large part to Nathan Arneal’s involvement. Nathan is the President of the North Bend Chamber of Commerce. But he is also the owner/publisher/editor of the North Bend Eagle, the local newspaper. Although Nathan was already documenting the event and the recovery efforts in relation to his newspaper, he was also serving in an important role for the community. He was anointed the town’s Public Information Officer, making him a key cog in the public information process.

Nathan took to the North Bend Eagle’s Facebook and Twitter pages to provide as much information about the event and recovery as possible. Not only did local residents look to his social media accounts for information, but former residents and relatives of residents did as well.

As flood waters rose throughout town, Nathan documented the impacts. Videos and pictures filled the social media accounts of the Eagle. Concerned individuals now had a source of information. Not only were they able to see the flood waters rush in, they were informed of where to get help, where to drop off flood ruined material, and how efforts to combat the flood were succeeding.

Where’s My Mail?

Interestingly, it was the flood of the local post office that brought a notable amount of attention from the media. Although only 3 or 4 inches of water entered the building, what was left behind was a mud-caked mess.

Operations of the post office were shifted over to the town of Morse Bluff while repairs on the facility were completed. Residents were forced to drive to Morse Bluff on the other side of the Platte River each day for their mail.

Shifting operations was no small task. The North Bend post office provides services for over 800 rural residents around the town and three others nearby. It also has 350 post office boxes within the facility as well.

Eventually the town was provided a mobile postal truck. A truck, provided and staffed by the U.S. Post Office that can handle most of the retail activities of a typical bricks and mortar post office. It can also provide a limited number of post office boxes as well.

Postal Mobile Retail Units

USPS Mobile Retail Unit – US Postal Service

This helped the situation, bringing postal services back to the community. However, residents would not feel a sense of normalcy until the permanent facility was finally repaired.

There Still Work to Do in North Bend

When asked what still needs to be done, Nathan replied, “There’s no good answer to that.” A quick drive through the community it looks as though they’ve fully recovered. But to the wary eye of those who witnessed the event, a rather large amount of damage still exists. From the permanent mark on some of the furniture to the random sand bag, there are subtle reminders of the flooding.

But there are more significant issues that stick out like a sore thumb. The community has been dealing with repairs to buckling streets, sand in the sewer system, and a variety of long-term repairs that can only be done when funding is available.

Although FEMA provided financial assistance for a number of recovery efforts in the community, they denied funding for others. Possibly the biggest hit was their request for $730,000 to repair the Platte River levee southwest of North Bend. FEMA would only fund a smaller version of the project with a $217,000 scope. Of that amount, FEMA would pay 75%, the Nebraska Emergency Management Agency 12.5%, with the City of North Bend paying for the remaining 12.5%.

The community did eventually receive some good news though as they were granted $62,000 from the Nebraska Flood Recovery Fund for street and levy repairs. It didn’t cover all the costs, but the grant funds were certainly helpful. Regardless, government representatives will have to look deeper into the community’s finances to make an effort to return as much of the infrastructure to pre-disaster condition.

Lessons Learned

In discussing the lessons learned from the recovery process with Nathan Arneal, he immediately pointed towards the recovery committee. “Don’t wait until afterwards,” Nathan stated. “If you have to evacuate, find a place out of town to meet.”

Don’t think too long about the composition of that group or making sure that you have a regular meeting place picked out. All of that will work out if your committee has the flexibility and understand the need to adjust on the fly. It is more important to start meeting and meet as often as necessary to handle the task at hand.

The recovery committee in itself should be a lesson for other communities. The structure and level of organization the North Bend’s committee operated at was something that should be commended. In the chaos that ensues after a disaster event like the floods of 2019, having stable leadership and direction is key to successful recovery.

 

* A special thanks goes out to Nathan Arneal in helping to prepare this post and providing the supporting images.