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Top USACE officials visit flood areas

Published March 20, 2019
MG Spellmon visits Omaha District flooding

(From left) U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Omaha District Commander Col. John Hudson, Commander, USACE Deputy Commanding General for Civil Works and Emergency Operations, Maj. Gen. Scott A. Spellmon, and Contingency Operations and Homeland Security Director Charles R. Alexander Jr. receive a briefing on flood fighting in the upper Missouri River basin in the emergency operations center of the Omaha District headquarters Wed. Mar. 20.

OMAHA, Neb. – The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Deputy Commanding General for Civil Works and Emergency Operations, Maj. Gen. Scott Spellmon, and Ray Alexander, USACE Director of Contingency Operations, visited the Omaha District today and inspected flooded areas this morning via helicopter to develop an understanding of the level of effort required to repair the structures.

Tuesday evening, District Commander Col. John Hudson and the USACE Northwestern Division Commander, Brig. Gen. Pete Helmlinger briefed Vice President Mike Pence about flood conditions. Col. Hudson informed the Vice President about the Corps’ response along the Missouri River and work with state, local and tribal governments.

Much of the levee system remains compromised.  As of noon today, there were confirmed breaches at L611-614 (South of Council Bluffs, Iowa), L-601 (South of Glenwood, Iowa), L-594 (near Fremont County, Iowa), L-575 (Fremont County, Iowa), L-550 (Atchison County, Missouri), L-536 (Atchinson County, Missouri), R-613 (Sarpy County, Nebraska), R-562 (Nemaha County, Nebraska), Western Sarpy (Ashland, Nebraska), Clear Creek (Ashland, Nebraska), Union Levee (Valley, Nebraska), and R-573 (Otoe County, Nebraska). The remaining levees south of the Platte River down to the Omaha District’s southernmost border at Rulo, Nebraska, remain overtopped.

The Omaha district continues to send out teams to monitor the levee situation. These teams’ observations will be vital as the water recedes, allowing the district to assess damage to the levee system and start planning for repairs.

The Omaha District’s focus is on ensuring the safety of citizens and communicating the conditions on the river systems to all of our partners and stakeholders. The Corps continues to provide flood fight assistance to state, local and tribal government agencies. To date, the Omaha district has distributed approximately 168,000 sandbags, 2,020 super sandbags, 9,930 feet of HESCO barriers, one 16” pump and one sandbag-filling machine.

The first source of information for citizens is their local emergency managers. For questions or concerns you can call 211, which is a national resource hotline and website geared to local area needs.


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