From left, 11-year-old Emiliana "Mimi" Collin, 14-year-old Sebastian Collin, Emy Collin and Gloria Hamilton talk on video chat with Emy's oldest grandchild. The normally close family has been forced to deal with separation since spring floods added hours to the distances they have to drive to visit one another.
VERDIGRE, Neb. – When locals look back on the March floods, they say the earth was bleeding water. Heavy rains pummeled still-frozen land, and the water had nowhere to go.
Ice chunks the size of trucks had built up behind the Spencer Dam on the Niobrara River, a tributary of the Missouri River in northeastern Nebraska. When the 92-year-old dam broke on March 14, ice and water surged downriver, flooding fields, destroying buildings and blocking roads.
Across America’s farm and ranch heartland, communities experienced unprecedented spring flooding this year due to heavy rainfall and snowmelt. And rising water is not unique to the Midwest. Close to 700 of 1,187 federally declared disasters since 1999 have involved flooding, affecting Americans everywhere. In May, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicted that at least 25 states would face elevated risk for flooding, especially Nebraska, Minnesota and Iowa.
Outside Lynch, Nebraska, population 245, flooding pushed a piece of ice as large as a dinner table into Emy Collin’s backyard. She saw logs, tires and “all kinds of strange stuff” floating up to her home.
When school let out around noon, her 14-year-old son called to say there was no way home.
“That day of the flood, he was calling us all the time making sure we were still alive because he was worried that ... our house could get wiped out,” Collin said.
Roads and bridges are closed due to flood damage in Niobrara, Nebraska on June 12, 2019. Across America’s farm and ranch heartland, communities experienced unprecedented spring flooding this year due to heavy rainfall and snowmelt.
The Collin family moved into the countryside so they could have space to raise cats, dogs and chickens on their land in Lynch, Neb. The flood waters swept their chicken coop and five cats into a neighbor's field, killing all the chickens and several cats.
An unnamed bridge in Verdigre, Neb. washed away during March flooding, contributing to long detours between the small towns in the northeast of the state.
Emy Collin, a member of the Ponca Tribe of Nebraska, moved her family back to the tribe’s ancestral homeland near the Ponca Creek three years ago. To Collin, living in harmony with nature means a great deal.
“The solitude, the wide open space, you can go outside and see beauty,” she said.
But it comes with risks.
“I’ve always wanted to live by a running stream or river,” she said. “And then the flood happened.”
The rising water left the family mostly cut off from other communities for 18 days. For the first two, Collin’s son was unable to make his way home, staying with a school bus driver instead. Months after the floodwaters receded, the family still faces detours of roughly 100 miles to get to nearby cities for grocery shopping or to see family.
The flood also struck Verdigre, a town 40 miles away that was founded by Czech homesteaders in the 1800s. On March 13, waters had spilled over the banks of Verdigre Creek by noon, and by 4 p.m. most of Main Street was inundated.
A version of this story was published in 2019 by News21 as part of the project State of Emergency.
Scott Collin, Emy Collin's husband, sits in his family's home in Lynch, Neb. The Collins are members of the Ponca tribe of Nebraska and moved their family back to the tribe’s ancestral homeland near the Ponca Creek three years ago. To Collin, living in harmony with nature means a great deal.
Emy Collin, right, carries a crippled cat across her property. “We have a cottonwood tree out here that's probably 200 or 300 years old, and that makes me think every time I see it, you know, my ancestors walked by or touched that tree ... so it makes you feel way more connected to your ancestors being here.”
Emiliana "Mimi" Collin, 11, holds a container of flood water that she kept as a memento of spring floods that swept through her home.
In the town of Verdigre, located near the intersection of the Missouri and Niobrara Rivers, town members celebrate the annual Kolache Days by dumping rubber ducks off a bridge and collecting them downstream. Although the town was devastated by flooding in March 2019, the Verdigre Creek remains central to local culture.
Emy Collin talks with her mother, Gloria Hamilton, in her home in Lynch, Neb. Collin says this is the first day she was able to spend time with her mother since the flood happened in March due to the long drive that now separates the usually close family.
The damage to transportation has also hurt the tourism industry that small towns rely on. “It's been a real financial struggle for everyone,” said Denise Wilson, who owns a bar in the Niobrara, population 370, where the Niobrara and Missouri rivers meet. Niobrara also relies on hunters, river rafters and visitors to Niobrara State Park to boost its economy.