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Omaha District Awards Emergency Levee Contract

Omaha District
Published March 21, 2019

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Omaha District, has awarded a contract for an emergency levee breach repair on the Union Dike. The breach on the Platte River significantly impacts public safety in the local area, and repair work will begin Friday, March 22. Additionally, the Omaha District is scheduled to mail levee rehab letters to local sponsors on Monday, March 25 so levee sponsors can begin the process of requesting repairs.

On Saturday, Omaha District Commander Col. John Hudson and staff are scheduled to visit Pierre, South Dakota, to meet with state emergency management officials to discuss flood forecast and USACE’s ability to respond to state or tribal requests for assistance.

Today, Omaha District hydrographic survey crews began surveying scour holes at the toes of compromised levees on the Missouri River.

Much of the levee system remains compromised due to the record inflows surpassing their designed protection levels.

As of noon today, there were 43 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).

Omaha District continues to send out teams to monitor and assess the damage to the levee system and start planning for repairs.

Omaha District’s focus remains 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.

The Omaha District has distributed approximately 175,000 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.


Contact
Capt. Ryan Hignight
402-995-2417
ryan.b.hignight@usace.army.mil

Release no. UNRELEASED