Storm of the Century

By Shannon Schneider, Devin Fulton and Chase Vialpando

With blizzards on one end and flooding on the other, Storm Ulmer’s path brought widespread devastation to Nebraskans, leaving students, faculty and community members in difficult straits.

With campus closed Wednesday through Friday, CSC Dining Services and Residence Life Association went to work, ensuring students had a meal during the storm.

“I thought that as a housing and residence life department, we did a great job preparing and planning for what could have happened,” Assistant Director of Residence Life Mariah Nelson said.

“I am so thankful for all the people that were able to help keep this place up and running during those snowy days,” Nelson said.

Though students on campus feared a power outage as the blizzard intensified, power stayed on for the duration of the storm. For some students, the storm gave them an opportunity to rest and catch up on classwork.

“During the snow days I enjoyed sleeping in and having some down time as well as getting some homework done. Having three snow days may cause my professors to push a lot of stuff back, and so the next few weeks will be crazy,” junior Travis Millikan, of Norfolk, said.

Plows worked throughout the end of the week to get streets cleared, but on campus the efforts had been going since the first flakes began to fall. According to Maintenance Supervisor Todd Baumann, this was the worst he’d seen in 18 years, but the main priority was the students.

“During the snowstorm, all the guys were working so students could get to the student center and eat. (We worked to) keep the dorms open, and take care of the kids in the dorms,” Baumann said.

Baumann said Storm Ulmer was exceptional not just because of the amount of snow, but the way the wind carried it.

“This was an exceptional snow storm due to the depth, the way the wind blew it, and the weight of the snow,” Baumann said. “It took us longer than what we normally deal with.”

Still, Baumann and his crew kept clearing paths as the storm raged on. Dining Services extended a helping hand by feeding maintenance workers, creating what Baumann called “a better working environment.”

As CSC’s maintenance workers endured blizzard conditions, Rebecca Hiatt, sophomore of Spencer, had family and friends back home battling rising waters. Hiatt said the first thing she did was call home to check on her family and friends’ safety, especially those who live on the river. When she did, she found that things were more dire than she expected.

“My first reaction was ‘Is everybody okay? Did everyone get evacuated?’ Hiatt said. “I called my dad right away. I was talking to him on the phone, and some of our friends who live below the hill were staying at my house. My first thought was ‘Oh, they’re staying in my room, I hope it’s clean’…and then, (my thought) was ‘They’re without power.’ I told my dad, ‘This is going to get worse.’”

Spencer, a town of 428, found itself in the middle of catastrophic flooding after a 90-year-old dam keeping the Niobrara river at bay gave way to an 11-foot wave of water and ice. Though her family and many of the residents live on higher ground, Hiatt’s thoughts were with those who live and own businesses in the floodpath.

“I know the people who own the businesses and live down there, and my first thought was ‘They’re going to lose what they know,’” Hiatt said.

With bridges and roads wiped out, residents who work in nearby O’Neill are now faced with nearly-tripled commutes on the few roads that are open. Landowners in Niobrara can’t check on their land near Spencer. Spencer’s water line, which lies below a collapsed bridge, is ruptured, leaving residents without access to water.

“There was a business from South Dakota who brought in port-a-potties, and they’re around our community, and you can rent them. My family rented a port-a-potty for our yard. It’s sitting right in front of my house, just because we don’t know how long we’ll be without plumbing,” Hiatt said.

Hiatt plans to head home this weekend to help her family, but this trip back will feel different.

“It’s going to be a weird feeling because I’ll be going home, but it’s not really the home I have grown up with,” Hiatt said, “That bridge, and that dam, and the bar, and bridge by Butte, and the bridge by Niobrara, I have drove those hundreds of times. That’s how we get to basketball games and local competitions. My friends live across those bridges.”

Still, Hiatt is confident that Spencer and the surrounding communities will be able to rally and find strength to recover from this disaster.

“The minute it was over and we knew everyone was safe, with the exclusion of the man that’s still missing, I knew everything would be okay because we are a small town, we contribute to each other and we will help each other,” Hiatt said.