Nebraska City sits on the banks of the Missouri River just south of its confluence with the Platte River.  The Platte River drains 50,000 square miles of the eastern Rocky Mountains in Wyoming, northern Colorado, and the Great Plains of Nebraska.  The Missouri River is the longest river in the United States coursing over 2300 miles from its headwaters in Yellowstone National Park to the Mississippi River north of St. Louis.  It drains over 520,000 square miles of land, over one-sixth of the United States.  Last winter brought record snows to the mountains and 200-400% of the average rain.  Snowmelt, accelerated by persistent spring rains, resulted in this catastrophic flooding.  The forecast for the upcoming winter is just as snowy.

Today, the Missouri River is at 19.7 feet, 1.7 feet above flood stage and forecast to remain above flood stage into December. Homes, fields and roads are still underwater.

 The US Army Corps of Engineers will spend $1 billion on temporary levee repairs patching the 40 breached levees between Omaha and Kansas City.  Highway 2 that joins Nebraska city to Iowa is being raised to prevent a recurrence of the bridge closure and the severe economic impact it had on the region.

 The project will be completed in November 2020.  In the meantime, the six Missouri River reservoirs upstream are at capacity.  And Montana and North Dakota have already had record amounts of snow.

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The post The Power of Nature: the 2019 Missouri River Flood appeared first on Exploring Nature by Sheila Newenham.